‎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... In 3 volumes.‎

‎A Londres, De l'imprimerie de J. Tonson & J. Watts, M DCC XXIV. (1724), in-4to, Frontispice portrait + [4], XV, [9], 363, [13] / Vol. II [4], 538, [14] / Vol. III [4], 411, [13], rousseurs (staines), overlapping laether bindings. / reliures en cuir, titre ms. au dos.‎

Reference : 135755aaf

‎French language edition. Michel de Montaigne, Essays First published in 1580, 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 language 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!. ‎