An open library of thought
Paint not being, but passage.
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
These records cover the Essays as a whole, their longest chapter, the Apology for Raymond Sebond, and the Travel Journal printed in 1774. The translation of Sebond (1569), the edition of La Boétie (1571), the letters and the differences between the Bordeaux Copy and the 1595 edition are not indexed separately; this is a selection, not a complete bibliography.
011580–1588
Begun around 1572 in the tower library of his château, the first two books were printed in Bordeaux in 1580; the Paris edition of 1588 added a third book and hundreds of additions. Montaigne kept annotating his own copy, and the posthumous edition of 1595 prepared by Marie de Gournay differs from that annotated Bordeaux Copy.
021580
Placed in Book II, chapter 12, it was probably written for the most part around 1576 and expanded until 1592. In 1569, at his father’s request, Montaigne had published his translation of Sebond’s Latin Natural Theology. Readers still debate whether the chapter supports faith by humbling reason or quietly undermines the defence it claims to offer.
031580–1581 · published 1774
A secretary wrote the first part in the third person; Montaigne then continued it himself, partly in Italian. Never intended for print, the manuscript was found at the château around 1770 and published in 1774, after which it was lost, so modern editions depend largely on that printing.