Caption: "Montaigne, Essays, 'Cut these words, and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive . . .' - Emerson, designed by Bruce Rogers, printed by Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1902-1904. Montaigne, the foremost apostle of urbanity and detachment, wrote his Essays between the years 1571 and 1588. In the note, "The Author to the Reader," the purpose is clearly stated. '. . . I desire therein to be delineated in mine owne genuine, simple, and ordinarie fashion . . . ; for it is myselfe I pourtray . . . Thus, gentle Reader, myselfe am the groundworke of my booke: it is then no reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a subject. Therefore, Farewell.' In these three books of Essays, Montaigne is always asking, 'What do I know?' and then in discussions and personal essays he gives us meditations on his wide classical readings, observations of life around him, and revelations of his own whims and habits. Montaigne also shows that he believes in fraternity and the underlying goodness of humanity and he is therefore a leading representative of the French spirit in the Renaissance. The standard English translation is the one used in this edition, made by John Florio in the early part of the seventeenth century. This polyglot scholar, born in Italy, later a teacher of French and Italian at Oxford, made in this translation an English masterpiece and gave us Montaigne, the solitary philosopher, ‘the best companion in the world.’ In 1901, Bruce Rogers, ‘the ideal of all those who have tried to produce books,’ designed a special font ‘Montaigne’ for this monumental edition of the Essays in ‘an attempt to meet a want for a large type face that would avoid the blackness of Morris’ types and the thin effect of the ordinary types when used in the larger sizes.’ The Essays of Montaigne is one of the famous Riverside Limited Editions for which literary selections were determined by the rule that the text should ‘allow of an individual style of typographical treatment.’”
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