Customer Reviews

Selected Essays (Dover Thrift Editions)

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If you haven't read Montaigne, you have to read him. Hell, he invented the essay. That's not at issue here. Which edition you choose, though, is. In general, I'm a big fan of the Dover Thrift Editions. They cover many classics of the canon, with competent if mildly antiquated translations, and--best of all--they're dirt cheap.

This short edition, a tiny selection of the essays of Michel de Montaigne, has many virtues, not the least of which is editor Philip Smith's excellent contribution in footnotes at the bottom of each page. Smith points to problems in the translation, updating it where necessary and remedying Montaigne's penchant for sprinkling Latin quotes here and there; all the Latin passages are translated and traced to their origins.

In addition, this volume does contain a couple of Montaigne's most durable essays, especially "Of Friendship" and "Of Repentance." Some choice ones are noticeably absent, though, and in particular Montaigne's hard look at the practice of colonizing the then-New World. Essays like "Of Cannibals" and "Of Coaches," which use an examination of native American cultures in order to critique the culture of Montaigne's own France, are far more popular (if not indispensible) today than they were in 1877, when the essays in this selection were originally chosen and translated. Those omissions, more than anything else, leave this Dover Edition feeling substantially dated and disappointingly incomplete.

Dover Editions are usually the best buy around, but for Montaigne's Essays, it's worth your while to spring for a more complete selection.