What Do I Know?

Essential Essays

By: Michel de Montaigne, David Coward (Translator)

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Hardcover | 24 October 2023

At a Glance

Hardcover
192 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.9 x 2

Hardcover

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A fresh new translation of Michel de Montaigne’s most profound, searching essays, with an introduction from Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose

This gift-worthy collection of 16 essays by “the father of the essay” is a short, accessible introduction to his work, offering a fascinating glimpse inside a great Renaissance mind

“I myself am the subject of my book.” So wrote Montaigne in the introductory note to his Essays, the book that marked the birth of the modern essay form.

In works of probing intelligence and idiosyncratic observation, Montaigne moved from intimate personal observation to roving theories of the conduct of kings and cannibals, the effects of sorrow and fear, and the fallibility of human memory and judgement.

This new selection of Montaigne’s 16 most ingenious essays appears in a lucid new translation by the prize-winning David Coward. What Do I Know? gives the modern reader profound insight into a great Renaissance mind.

What Do I Know? is divided into 3 sections and includes:

MONTAIGNE ON MONTAIGNE

On Sorrow, On how our Actions are to be judged by the Intention, On Idling, On Liars, That we should not be considered happy until we are dead

ON THE PURSUIT OF REASON

On Fear, To tell true from false, it is folly to rely on our own capacities, How we can cry and laugh at the same thing, On Solitude, On the Uncertainty of our Judgement, On Drunkenness

ON GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNORS

On Cannibals, On the Inequality that exists between us, On Sleep, On our lease of life, On Carriages

Industry Reviews

'Read Montaigne in order to live' - Gustave Flaubert

'I defy any reader of Montaigne not to put down the book at some point and say with incredulity: How did he know all that about me?' - The Times

'[Montaigne] was the first who had the courage to say as an author what he felt as a man' - William Hazlitt

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