'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. ’80: choose. Meanwhile I leave Fortune to furnish me with subjects. Since all are equally good for me, and I do not undertake to treat them fully or to scrape the barrel; of the hundreds of features which each of them has; I take the one which pleases me: I grasp them preferably by some extraordinary aspect: I could well select richer, fuller ones if I had some other objective. Every act is appropriate for making ourselves known: that same soul of Caesar’s…

3. He asked Alexander the Great to get out of his light. On his trundling of his barrel, cf. the Prologue to the Tiers Livre of Rabelais.

4. Plutarch, Life of Brutus; Diogenes Laertius, Life of Aristippus.

5. Laughter is the ‘property’ – the specific quality – of Man. Cf. Rabelais, Gargantua, preliminary poem.

The Complete Essays

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