Essays

A collection of 107 essays in three books by a French magistrate who retired to his tower to read and write. Montaigne invented the essay as a form: the word means a trial or attempt, and each piece tests his judgement on a subject, from sleep, smells and thumbs to friendship, cruelty, education and death. He tells the reader that he is himself the matter of his book. Early essays lean on the Stoics, as in the claim that to philosophise is to learn to die. The long 'Apology for Raymond Sebond' sets out a sweeping scepticism drawn from Sextus Empiricus, summed up in his motto 'What do I know?'. 'Of Cannibals' turns the charge of barbarism back on Europe, and 'Of Friendship' remembers his friend Étienne de La Boétie. The last books, especially 'Of Experience', move towards an acceptance of ordinary, bodily, changing life. Montaigne kept adding to the text until his death.

It is the source of the personal essay and of modern self-examination, and it models a way of thinking that is honest about doubt, tolerant of difference and at ease with ordinary life.