The Essays

One of the most honest books ever written — a book in which a man of extraordinary intelligence turns the same unsentimental gaze on himself that he turns on the world, and reports what he finds without flinching. Montaigne invented the essay as a literary form. He also invented something else: the examined life as a literary project. These are both among the most significant cultural events of the Renaissance.

The Essays range over everything: what it means to be a friend, how to prepare for death, the nature of experience, the customs of Brazilian cannibals, the unreliability of memory, the pleasures of philosophy, the problems with his kidneys. They do so with an openness, a humour, and a quality of thought that remains completely fresh five hundred years later. Montaigne talks to you from the page, and what he says feels like conversation between friends who have not yet run out of things to say to each other.

M.A. Screech’s translation is widely regarded as the finest in English. To read the Essays entire is one of the great literary experiences available to any reader. Published by Penguin Classics.