Select Essays [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

The book of Essays was one he worked on periodically throughout his life, issuing different editions, the first of which appeared in 1580. Montaigne's style of writing is sometimes stream-of-consciousness, sometimes structured in more formal styles.

Montaigne's stated task in his preface to the reader is for self-examination, but it becomes very clear that Montaigne sees himself as an 'everyman' character. He strives for full-disclosure; indeed, he writes that were he another culture 'which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws', then he might have appeared naked.

This is a complete set of the Essays, together with a helpful introduction and notes for reading. As Montaigne added to his essays periodically, they are not necessarily in the order he wrote them, but this collection has preserved their order according to his standards.

Montaigne's essays show a pessimism and skepticism, perhaps based on the kinds of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants going on, in France and elsewhere, as well as the periodic flare of plague. He was a humanist who saw cultures as having value internal to themselves and preferred to not universalise morals, laws and other ideas.

Montaigne was sometimes conventional in thought (seeing marriage as necessary for children, and distrusting the idea of romantic love), but other times he was very much a free thinker (particularly when it came to religious dogma or absolutist kinds of philosophical paradigms). Montaigne had respect for those who followed religious codes and ways of life, but distrusted those who tried to impose such ideas upon others.

Montaigne added to his essays twice in major ways, but did not strive for consistency or systematic ways of thinking - he declined to remove previous essays if they contradicted new writings.

Montaigne is perhaps the most important French philosopher prior to the Enlightenment. His essays remain popular because they have a sense of the modern and the current about them.

Aside from the clarity of his prose and his engaging tone, Screech managed to synthesize the multiple editions of the essays into a single work, giving the readers an insight into Montaigne's development.

The essays were originally published in three editions. With each revision, essays were amended, expanded, and edited as Montaigne's thoughts developed. Screech uses a subtle system to note these later additions and revisions, pointing out where the essays grew over time.

Screech's translations of the hundreds of classical quotations are also well handled, giving both the original language and a clear English rendering of the passage without interrupting the flow of the text.

This is an amazing book. Moving, insightful, humane, and thick enough to kill any bugs you choose to smack with it. I've had to order a second copy of this volume, since I've reduced my first copy to tatters, reading and rereading it. Okay, and smacking bugs.