'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. Verses derived from Propertius and translated in a recent Italian book of etiquette, Stefano Guazzo’s La civil conversatione, which had at least five editions between 1574 and 1600. Cf. note 6, below.

2. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Les Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, p. 215G.

3. Diodorus Siculus, XV, ii, p. 179r°; Horace, Epistles, I, xiv, 43.

4. Until [C]: always strive to lead…

5. Guillaume Du Bellay was the Seigneur de Langey. The Mémoires (often attributed to Martin Du Bellay) were the work of Guillaume, Jean, René and Martin Du Bellay. (Cf. here, Mémoires, pp. 152–6.)

6. Aulus Gellius, I, xiii, 24. These facts, and a similar discussion based on Aulus Gellius, occur in another famous book of court etiquette, Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, which was written for King Francis I of France.

The Complete Essays

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