1724 French Essays of Michel Montaigne France Renaissance Philosophy Humanism

1724 French Essays of Michel Montaigne France Renaissance Philosophy Humanism

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”

― Michel de Montaigne, Essays

First published in 1580, the Essays of Michel de Montaigne were a collection of essays and writings on a variety of topics and content. Montaigne was rather decisive in his rhetoric and used various Ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian texts as examples and references, such as Lucretius and Plutarch quotations. Montaigne himself stated that the goal of his essays was to describe man with ‘utter frankness and honesty.’ According to the scholar Paul Oskar Kristeller,

“the writers of the period were keenly aware of the miseries and ills of our earthly existence”.

Montaigne sought to break man down into his basic features, which, at the time, was extreme volatility. He wrote on marriage being an absolute necessity for raising children, but he also quoted, in the ‘Essays,’ that “Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out.”

This 1724 French edition was curiously published in London and includes the first edits by Pierre Cost. According to Tchemerzine, this edition is “one of the most beautiful and best editions of Montaigne!”

Item number: #9014

Price: $750

MONTAIGNE, Michel de

Les essais : de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne. Nouvelle edition, faite sur les plus anciennes & les plus correctes : augmentée de quelques lettres de l’auteur ; … Avec de courtes remarques ; & de nouveaux indices

Londres : De l’imprimerie de J. Tonson & J. Watts, 1724.

Details:

• Collation: Complete with all pages; 3 volumes
  • I – [4], xv, [9], 363, [13]
  • II – [4], 538, [14]
  • III – [4], 411, [13]
• References: Tchemerzine IV, 911;
• Language: French
• Binding: Leather; tight & secure
• Size: ~11.5in X 9.75in (29.5cm x 24.5cm)
• Extremely rare and desirable with auction records and price comparisons at $3,500

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