Les Essais de Michel seigneur de Montaigne
The Essays of Montaigne preserved in their contemporary vellum binding.
“Mlle de Gournay adds a note in which she touchingly expresses the hope she may have the Essaysprinted once more correctly before she dies” (Sayce & Maskel).
A very fine copy.
Quarto (26) ff., 1039 ff., (1) f., 101 pp.
Flexible vellum with overlap, traces of ties, smooth spine, calligraphed title on spine, some browned leaves.
Contemporary binding.
229 x 170 mm.
Montaigne, Michel de. The Essays of Michel, Lord of Montaigne. New edition. Corrected & increased by a third beyond the first printings. Plus the life of the author, extracted from his own writings.
Paris, Nicolas Bessin, 1625.
Rare and precious 1625 edition of the Essays, containing modifications.
Tchemerzine, IV, 892; Sayce & Maskel, 23rd; Bibliotheca Desaniana, 48.
Interesting Parisian edition of 1625 based on that of 1617 with important modifications.
“At the end of her preface Mlle de Gournay adds an important statement, which appears here for the first time, concerning changes to the text which have been forced upon her by the printers. The text has indeed been modernized. Mlle de Gournay also admits to modifying the passage in praise of her at the end of II 17. After the errata, Mlle de Gournay adds a note in which she touchingly expresses the hope she may have the Essais printed once more correctly before she dies” (Sayce & Maskel).
“New edition due to Marie de Gournay. To this day, it remains the one with the most important paratext to facilitate reading of the Essays” (Ph. Desan).
“Montaigne never stopped annotating what he had written and these annotations, which sometimes even contradict the original text a little, are part of the Essays as we read them [...] The Essays, which have assimilated and transmitted to us in an accessible form all the achievements of Antiquity, are at the same time the earliest and most decisive of modern works” (Dictionnaire des Œuvres).
When speaking of our greatest masterpieces, Montaigne is invoked, because, as the first, he brilliantly represents the fundamental tendency of the French genius which, from Pascal to Bergson, passing through Racine, Vauvenargues or Stendhal, produced so many psychologists and moralists.
Old editions of Montaigne's Essays in contemporary bindings have always been sought after.
Very beautiful copy preserved in its soft contemporary overlapping vellum cover.
Provenance: handwritten ex-libris on the blank leaf and at the top of the title. (...of the king).
