The Essays of Michael de Montaigne,

publisher's original boards

A handsome set in English and the publisher's original boards of this important work of French Renaissance thought by the humanist courtier Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) which pioneered the essay-writing genre.

The Essays marked the beginning of an important shift in European thought which took place at the beginning of the seventeenth century towards a philosophical scepticism that argued against the possibility of actual knowledge in the natural sciences, ethics, and theology. Montaigne was amongst the first to shake such fundamental aspects of Western thought as the belief in the superiority of man over animals, or European civilisation over "Barbarianism" — his approach best being summed-up in the famous epithet 'Que sais-je?' ('What do I know?')

This translation was the final work which the English poet Charles Cotton (1630–1687) saw through the press. It immediately supplanted the edition by John Florio of 1603, and remained in print well into the twentieth century. The translation was made from the French edition of Pierre Coste (1668-1747).

Stated 'Ninth edition'; 3 vols; 8vo (27 x 17 cm); text in English, engraved frontispiece to vol. I, occasional spotting; publisher's boards, original paper labels to spines, uncut edges, spines neatly restored, very good.