The Essays of Montaigne
First published in 1686; from the edition revised and edited in 1877 by William Carew Hazlitt
Table of Contents
- The Letters of Montaigne
- Chapter XXXIV. Means to carry on a war according to Julius Caesar.
- Chapter I. Of Profit and Honesty.
- Chapter II. Of Repentance.
- Chapter III. Of Three Commerces.
- Chapter IV. Of Diversion.
- Chapter V. Upon Some verses of Virgil.
- Chapter VI. Of Coaches.
- Chapter VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness.
- Chapter VIII. Of the Art of Conference.
- Chapter IX. Of Vanity.
- Chapter X. Of Managing the Will.
- Chapter XI. Of Cripples.
- Chapter XII. Of Physiognomy.
- Chapter XIII. Of Experience.
- ↑ Translator John Florio
- French essays
- Works originally in French
- Pages with override translator
- Headers applying DefaultSort key
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The Essays of Michel de Montaigne Online
HyperEssays is a project to create a modern and accessible online edition of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne .
HyperEssays.net hosts four editions of the Essays :
- A 1598 edition, in middle French , edited by Marie de Gournay. This is a slightly revised version of Gournay’s original edition published in 1595 .
- A complete and searchable edition of John Florio’s 1603 translation of the Essays , in early modern English.
- A 1685 translation by Charles Cotton , also in early modern English. Only some chapters of this edition have been copyedited and posted.
- A complete and searchable modern edition of the Essays based on W. Carew Hazlitt’s 1877 update of Charles Cotton’s translation. I am slowly replacing the Cotton/Hazlitt translation with a contemporary one and adding new notes.
My goals with HyperEssays are to provide context and tools for first-time readers of the Essays and to design a lasting resource for all interested in Montaigne’s work.
To that end, I copyedit, update, and annotate the original text and its translations. I tag them for indexing and searching, and format them them for easy reading on smartphones, desktop computers, and tablets. In addition, I prepare and provide free chapter PDFs for offline reading.
You can help make HyperEssays a reliable online resource by supporting this project. With your contribution, this site can continue to grow and remain free and accessible to all.
What are the Essays about?
The Essays is not a single, cohesive book but a collection of short and long pieces on various subjects such as religion, horses, friendship, sleep, law, or suicide, which Montaigne wrote over more than twenty years . His goals for the book and the circumstances under which he worked on it changed over time .
The first edition, published in 1580, comprised two books. Eight years later, an updated edition included hundreds of revisions and a new, third book. By the time of his death, in 1592, Montaigne had planned many more changes, which were incorporated in the first posthumous edition of 1595.
So, while you can read the Essays from beginning to end, starting with Montaigne’s address To the Reader , you can also follow John Cage’s advice and “ begin anywhere. ”
Pick from a selection of some of the most well-known chapters:
- To Philosophize Is to Learn to Die ,
- On the Education of Children ,
- On Friendship ,
- On Cannibals ,
- Apology for Raymond Sebond ,
- On Some Verses of Virgil ,
- On Coaches ,
- On Experience .
Or look at the table of contents and let your curiosity guide you.
Who was Michel de Montaigne?
Michel de Montaigne, the author of the Essays, is often described as a sixteenth-century French philosopher. But was Montaigne actually a philosopher? And did he really retire from the world to write in solitude for years, as is commonly believed?
In On Montaigne , I address these questions and provide biographical context to better understand the Essays. The companion timeline provides a chronological overview of his life.
If you want to learn more about him, I recommend these four biographies of Montaigne (along with two modern translations of the Essays ). Each one is engaging but written with a different audience in mind.
Recent updates
Copy editing, translating, writing notes, updating metadata … the work never ends. This is HyperEssays’s work log, a list of the chapters I’ve been working on:
- Nov 18, 2024 · On Idleness
- Nov 17, 2024 · By Various Ways We Arrive at the Same End
- Nov 16, 2024 · Coustume de l’Isle de Cea
- Nov 10, 2024 · De l’yvrongnerie
- Nov 9, 2024 · Des coustumes anciennes
- Nov 9, 2024 · Des Destriers
- Nov 8, 2024 · De l’incertitude de nostre jugement
- Nov 2, 2024 · Des noms
- Nov 2, 2024 · De la bataille de Dreux
- Nov 2, 2024 · Consideration sur Ciceron
- Oct 27, 2024 · De la Solitude
- Oct 27, 2024 · Comme nous pleurons et rions d’une meme chose
Work on HyperEssays started on January 17, 2020 and likely won’t be completed for many years.
Essays of Montaigne, in 10 vols.
- Michel de Montaigne (author)
- Charles Cotton (translator)
This is a 10 volume collection of Montaigne’s famous essays in the 17th century English translation by Charles Cotton.
Volumes in this Set:
- Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 1
- Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 2
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 3
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 4
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 5
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 6
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 7
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 8
- Essays of Montaigne, vol. 9
- Life and Letters of Montaigne with Notes and Index, vol. 10
Essays of Montaigne, trans. Charles Cotton, revised by William Carew Hazlett (New York: Edwin C. Hill, 1910). In 10 vols.
The text is in the public domain.
- French literature
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Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Volume 01 by Michel de Montaigne
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The complete essays of Montaigne
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THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE [This is translated freely from that prefixed to the 'variorum' Paris edition, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo. This biography is the more desirable that it contains all really interesting and important matter in the journal of the Tour in Germany and Italy, which, as it was merely written under Montaigne's dictation, is in the third person, is scarcely worth publication, as a ...
The Essays of Montaigne (1877) by Michel de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton, edited by William Carew Hazlitt. →. First published in 1686; from the edition revised and edited in 1877 by William Carew Hazlitt. Scans.
Essays, Book I Michel de Montaigne 54. Vain subtleties 126 55. Smells 127 56. Prayers 129 57. Age 134 Glossary coutume: Where the coutume is social, it is translated as 'custom'; where it is individual, as 'habit', especially in Essay 23. essai: An essai (French) may be a test, or an attempt, or an exercise, or a certain kind of ...
HyperEssays is a project to create a modern and accessible online edition of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. HyperEssays.net hosts four editions of the Essays: A 1598 edition, in middle French, edited by Marie de Gournay. This is a slightly revised version of Gournay's original edition published in 1595. A complete and searchable edition ...
Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne. Read now or download (free!) Choose how to read this book Url Size; ... English: LoC Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese: Subject: French essays -- Translations into English
Michel de Montaigne (author) Charles Cotton (translator) This is a 10 volume collection of Montaigne's famous essays in the 17th century English translation by Charles Cotton.
The essays : of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne, translated into English ... The essays : of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne, translated into English by Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592. Publication date 1760 ... Book from the collections of New York Public Library Language English Item Size 222.2M . Book digitized by Google from the library of the ...
Summary. "Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Volume 01" by Michel de Montaigne is a collection of philosophical essays written during the late 16th century. A pioneer of the essay as a literary form, Montaigne explores a wide array of topics reflecting on human nature, emotions, and existential questions. His introspective style offers insights ...
The complete essays of Montaigne by Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592. Publication date 1958 Topics French essays -- Early works to 1800, French essays Publisher Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press ... Contributor Internet Archive Language English Item Size 2.1G . xxiii, 883 pages ; 24 cm
The Essays (French: Essais, pronounced) of Michel de Montaigne are contained in three books and 107 chapters of varying length. They were originally written in Middle French and published in the Kingdom of France.Montaigne's stated design in writing, publishing and revising the Essays over the period from approximately 1570 to 1592 was to record "some traits of my character and of my humours."