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In February 1571 Michel de Montaigne, a 38-year-old magistrate who had just sold his seat in the Parlement of Bordeaux, moved into the tower of his family’s château in Périgord and started writing about whatever was on his mind: cannibals, friendship, cruelty, his kidney stones, his cat. He called the pieces essais, “attempts”, and gave a new kind of writing its name. The first edition of 1580 had 94 chapters in two books; by his death in 1592 he had added a third book and thousands of additions in the margins, and the final text runs to 107 chapters. Almost everything he wrote is that one book, so this page follows its French editions, his two other works and the English translations through which most readers meet him. This guide covers his ten key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1569–1991 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Montaigne wrote essentially one book, the Essais: first published in 1580 (two books), expanded in 1588 (three books) and published in its final form in 1595 by Marie de Gournay. He also translated Raymond Sebond’s Natural Theology (1569) and kept a travel journal, published in 1774. In English the key versions are by John Florio (1603), Charles Cotton (1685), Donald Frame (1958), J. M. Cohen (1958) and M. A. Screech (1991). Start with Frame’s Complete Essays; the list below explains how the translations differ.
Where to Start with Montaigne
If you want the complete Essays in modern English
→ Frame (1958) — the translation that marks when each passage was written.
If you want a shorter first taste
→ Cohen (1958) — a selection rather than the whole book.
If you want a complete version with full notes
→ Screech (1991) — the Penguin translation.
If you want the English Shakespeare read
→ Florio (1603) — Florio’s Elizabethan version.
10 Montaigne Books and Translations, in Order
La Théologie naturelle de Raymond Sebon
Montaigne’s first publication was not his own work but a French translation of the Theologia naturalis of Raymond Sebond, a fifteenth-century Catalan theologian who set out to prove the truths of Christianity by reason. It was published in 1569, the year after his father’s death. The longest of his essays, “Apology for Raymond Sebond” (Book II, chapter 12), began as a defence of this book and turned into his fullest statement of scepticism.
Essais, Books I and II
The first edition, printed in Bordeaux by Simon Millanges in two volumes, with Montaigne paying much of the cost. It contains 94 chapters in two books, from short pieces on idleness and fear to the long “Apology for Raymond Sebond”, and opens with a note “To the Reader” saying the book is meant for his family and friends. A slightly revised second edition followed from Millanges in 1582.
Essais, fifth edition, Books I–III
The fifth edition, published in Paris in June 1588, was the first to contain all three books known today. Montaigne added the thirteen chapters of Book III, longer and more personal than the early essays, and new passages to Books I and II. It was the last edition published in his lifetime.
Essais, posthumous edition
After 1588 Montaigne kept writing in the margins of a copy of the fifth edition, now known as the Bordeaux Copy. Three years after his death, his adopted daughter Marie de Gournay published a new edition in Paris with Abel L’Angelier, based partly on those annotations. The final text has 107 chapters, and modern editions are built on either the Bordeaux Copy or this 1595 text.
John Florio: The Essayes or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses
The first English translation, published in London in 1603, in a rich, expansive Elizabethan prose that is admired as a work of English in its own right; it went through two further editions. Shakespeare used it: Gonzalo’s speech about an ideal commonwealth in The Tempest follows Florio’s version of the essay “Of the Cannibals” closely.
Charles Cotton: Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne
The poet Charles Cotton’s translation, published in three volumes in 1685–6, plainer and closer to the French than Florio’s, soon overtook it as the standard English text. William Carew Hazlitt revised and edited it in 1877, and that version is the free Project Gutenberg text most readers find online today.
Journal du voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie
In September 1580 Montaigne set out for Rome through Germany and Switzerland, and was still in Italy in 1581 when he learned he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux. The journal of the trip, which covers spas, churches, food and his own health in detail, was lost after his death and first published in 1774, in an edition by Meusnier de Querlon.
Donald M. Frame: The Complete Essays of Montaigne
The American scholar Donald Frame’s translation first appeared in The Complete Works of Montaigne (1957), with the travel journal and letters, and as The Complete Essays from Stanford University Press. It marks the layers of composition, so you can see which passages date from 1580, 1588 or the last years, and it is the translation the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy quotes.
J. M. Cohen: Essays (Penguin Classics)
The British translator J. M. Cohen made this single-volume selection of the Essays for Penguin Classics in 1958. It gives a choice of chapters rather than the whole book, which makes it a manageable first taste.
M. A. Screech: The Complete Essays
The British Renaissance scholar Michael Screech’s complete translation, published by Allen Lane in London in 1991 as The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, with his introduction and notes, in nearly 1,300 pages. In paperback it became the Penguin Classics The Complete Essays, the edition most easily found in British and European bookshops.
In What Order to Read Montaigne
There is no order to keep: the Essays do not build on each other, and Montaigne himself added to old chapters for twenty years rather than writing new ones in sequence. Most readers start with a handful of chapters, such as “Of Friendship”, about Étienne de La Boétie, “Of the Cannibals”, “Of Idleness” and “Of Experience”, the last chapter of Book III, then read around.
For the translation, choose by what you want from it. Frame and Screech are both complete and modern; Frame shows the layers of the text, Screech has more notes. Cohen is a selection. Florio and Cotton are for readers who want seventeenth-century English. Leave the “Apology for Raymond Sebond”, the longest chapter, until you know his voice.
A reading path through the Essays
1. “To the Reader” and “Of Idleness” (Book I)
2. “Of Friendship” and “Of the Cannibals” (Book I)
3. “Apology for Raymond Sebond” (Book II)
4. “Of Experience” (Book III)
5. Then the Travel Journal
Other Editions and Translations
Beyond the 10 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
French editions
1
1 book · 1582
- 1582Essais, second editiona slightly revised edition from Simon Millanges in Bordeaux
English translations and editions
2
2 books · 1877–1957
- 1877Essays of Montaigne (Cotton, ed. Hazlitt)William Carew Hazlitt’s revision of Cotton, now on Project Gutenberg
- 1957The Complete Works of MontaigneFrame’s essays, travel journal and letters in one volume
The years · 1533–1592
Quick facts about Michel de Montaigne
- Known for
- Montaigne is known for inventing the essay as a form, writing about himself and his doubts as a way of thinking about everything else.
- 1533
- Born at the Château de Montaigne
- 1563
- Étienne de La Boétie dies
- 1571
- Retires to his tower to write
- 1580
- Essais
- 1592
- Dies at Montaigne
- Born
- 28 February 1533, Château de Montaigne, Périgord
- Died
- 13 September 1592, at Montaigne
- Education
- Raised speaking Latin; Collège de Guyenne, Bordeaux, 1539–1548
- Career
- Magistrate at Périgueux, then the Parlement of Bordeaux, 1557–1570
- Mayor
- Of Bordeaux, two terms, 1581–1585
- Married
- Françoise de La Chassaigne, 1565
- Motto
- Que sais-je? (“What do I know?”)
The red mark is 1580: the first edition of the Essais, printed in Bordeaux.
How Montaigne Writes: Trying Things Out
The word essai means a trial or an attempt, and Montaigne uses the form literally: he takes a subject, tests his judgement on it and follows where it goes, often a long way from the title. His aim, he says in “To the Reader”, is to show himself plainly, flaws included: “for it is myself I paint.” Kidney stones, eating habits and memory lapses sit beside war, death and the conquest of the Americas.
He thinks with other people’s words. The Essays are full of quotations from Latin authors, Seneca and Plutarch above all, and on the beams of his library ceiling he had favourite sayings inscribed. He rarely deleted anything: from 1580 to 1592 he kept adding, so a single paragraph can hold three layers of his thinking, which is why Frame and other editors mark the strata.
Underneath is a sceptic’s caution. His motto was Que sais-je?, “What do I know?”, and he had a medal struck showing a pair of balanced scales. The “Apology for Raymond Sebond” turns that doubt on human reason itself. Pascal and Descartes responded to him, and Emerson and Nietzsche counted him among their influences.
Frequently asked questions about Montaigne’s books
How many books has Montaigne written?
Essentially one: the Essais, 107 chapters in three books, which he expanded through several editions between 1580 and his death in 1592. Besides it he published a French translation of Raymond Sebond’s Natural Theology (1569), and his travel journal appeared in 1774. This page lists those five French books and five key English translations.
What are Montaigne’s books in order?
His translation of Sebond’s Théologie naturelle (1569); the Essais (1580, Books I–II; 1582, revised); the fifth edition with Book III (1588); the posthumous edition by Marie de Gournay (1595); and the Travel Journal (1774). The key English translations are Florio (1603), Cotton (1685), Frame (1958), Cohen (1958) and Screech (1991).
Where should I start with Montaigne?
With a few chapters of the Essays rather than the whole book: “To the Reader”, “Of Friendship”, “Of the Cannibals” and “Of Experience”. For the translation, Donald Frame’s Complete Essays is the usual modern standard; J. M. Cohen’s Penguin selection is a shorter way in.
What is Montaigne’s most famous book?
The Essays (Essais), his only original book, first published in 1580. Its best-known chapters include “Of Friendship”, “Of the Cannibals”, the “Apology for Raymond Sebond” and “Of Experience”.
Which translation of Montaigne’s Essays is best?
For a complete modern text, Donald Frame (1958) or M. A. Screech (1991). Frame marks when each passage was written; Screech has the fuller notes and is the Penguin Classics edition. Florio (1603) is the one Shakespeare read, and Cotton’s (1685), in Hazlitt’s revision, is the free version online.
Did Shakespeare read Montaigne?
At least one passage shows he did. Gonzalo’s speech about an ideal commonwealth in The Tempest follows John Florio’s 1603 translation of “Of the Cannibals” closely. How much more Shakespeare took from Montaigne is still debated.
What does Que sais-je mean?
“What do I know?” It was Montaigne’s motto, and he had a medal coined showing a pair of scales in balance. It sums up the sceptical side of the Essays, set out most fully in the “Apology for Raymond Sebond”.
Were Montaigne’s Essays banned?
In 1676, almost a century after the first edition, the Catholic Church placed the Essays on its Index of Prohibited Books.
Who was Marie de Gournay?
A young admirer whom Montaigne called his adopted daughter. He stayed with her family in 1588, and after his death she edited the first posthumous edition of the Essays, published in Paris in 1595.
Footnotes
- Michel de Montaigne — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Montaigne chronology — HyperEssays
- ‘Taught it to talke our tongue’: Montaigne English’d — Cambridge University Library
- Montaigne and The Tempest — Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
- Essays of Montaigne, tr. Cotton, ed. Hazlitt — Project Gutenberg
- The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, tr. Screech (1991) — Wellcome Collection
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “To the Reader”, Essays (1580), translated by Charles Cotton
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