'I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain'In 1572 Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading and thinking. There he wrote his constantly expanding 'assays' inspired by ideas he found in the books of his library and his own experience. He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience. But, above all, Montaigne studied himself as a way of drawing out his own inner nature and that of men and women generally. The Essays are among the most idiosyncratic and personal works in all literature, and an engaging insight into a wise Renaissance mind, which continue to give pleasure and enlightenment to modern readers.With its extensive introduction and notes, M. A. Screech's edition of Montaigne is widely regarded as the most distinguished of recent times.

The Complete Essays

1. [A] until [B]: reputation. I could tell some remarkable tales about that, but, for the while, it is better to keep to my subject. It is not for nothing… Then Plato, Critias, 108D.

3. Cf. Cicero, Pro Ligurio; Herodotus, Hist.. V, cv.

4. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, IV, ii, 91; the saying had become proverbial.

5. Pedro Mexia also treats this topic: cf. his Diverses Leçons (in, ‘How we can tell lies’). His sources, like Montaigne’s, are Aulus Gellius and Nonus.

6. St Augustine, City of God, XIX, vii; Montaigne cites Pliny from J. L. Vives’ note on this passage.

7. The murder of Captain Merveille became an international cause célèbre. It is narrated in the Du Bellay Mémoires.

8. The original source of this account is the De Lingua of Erasmus. It is taken up by Henri Estienne in the Apologie pour Hérodote.

The Complete Essays

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