Introduction

'Reader, this is an honest book… It is myself that I portray.' So Montaigne writes in his preface. He called his pieces 'essays', that is, attempts or trials, and the word became the name of a literary form. The three books contain a hundred and seven essays on the most varied subjects: friendship, solitude, sadness, cruelty, the education of children, cannibals, coaches, thumbs, experience, and 'that to philosophise is to learn to die'. Starting from his daily life, the ailments of his body and his reading, he speaks frankly of the inconstancy of human nature and the unreliability of judgement, quotes the ancients at every turn, and keeps revising and adding to his own views. He invented the modern essay and the kind of philosophy that takes the self as its object. We publish a selection first, followed by the complete text.