In February 1571, on his 38 th birthday, a one-time lawyer and courtier had a Latin inscription incised on a beam in his study. “Worn out with the slavery of the court and of public service, Michel de ...

In 1603 a London publisher called Edward Blount, the man who later commissioned the First Folio of Shakespeare’s collected plays, brought out a handsome volume with a lengthy title: “The Essayes or ...

Prof. Philippe Desan has spent most of his academic career studying the life and work of French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne. When he set out to write his definitive biography, Montaigne: A ...

Although it’s a bit embarrassing to admit it, who among us doesn’t come to great works of literature looking for some hints on improving our own lot? That was the double joke behind Alain de Botton’s ...

Michel de Montaigne was many things: a 16th century French writer, bureaucrat, and self-defined accidental philosopher. He's also the inventor of a new literary form we now call the essay. His Essais ...