MONTAIGNE Michel de Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l’auteur, reveuë & augmentée par luy d’un tiers plus qu’aux précédentes impressions.

Sayce & Maskell, 7B; Desan, 22; Tchemerzine-Scheler, IV, 876; Adams, M-1622 (only the L’Angelier issue).

First complete posthumous edition, partly original. Edited by Marie de Gournay, Montaigne’s covenant daughter. A fine copy of the early and rarer Sonnius issue.

The privilege for this edition was shared between the printers L’Angelier and Sonnius.

This copy of the rarer Sonnius issue should be placed before the L’Angelier issue according to the description given by Sayce & Maskell. « Montaigne’s Au lecteur, corrected by the author, was not available when printing started. Mlle de Gournay explained this later when she was at the Château de Montaigne and was able to supply the corrected text to printers who might produce new edition of the Essais”. [Therefore] Montaigne’s Au lecteur is lacking in the Sonnius copies but it was made good in nearly all the L’Angelier ones”.

This copy is also in the first issue, before the cancels for pages 63-64 and page 69 mentioned by the bibliographers Tchemerzine and Sayce & Maskell.

After Montaigne’s death on 13 September 1592, the discovery of a copy of the 1588 edition of the Essays, heavily annotated by the author, led to this new, corrected and expanded edition, given by Mademoiselle de Gournay. This edition, in which the Bordeaux poet Pierre de Brach collaborated and which included 1,409 additions taken from Montaigne’s personal copy, established the definitive text of the Essays.

Mademoiselle de Gournay, who wanted this edition to be as close as possible to Montaigne’s thought, prefaced the text of the 1595 edition with a long explanatory preface which she corrected in the 1598 edition: “[Cette édition] n’est pas si loing de la perfection, qu’on soit asseuré si les suyvantes la pourront approcher d’aussi pres, elle est au moins diligemment redressée par un Errata: sauf en quelques si légères fautes, qu’elles se restituent elles mesmes. Et de peur qu’on ne reiecte comme temerairement ingerez certains traictz de plume qui corrigent cinq ou six characteres, ou que quelqu’un à leur adveu n’en meslast d’autres de sa teste : ie donne advis qu’ils sont en ces mots, si, demesler, deuil, osté, Indique, estacade, affreré, paelle, m’a, engagez, & quelques poincts de moindre consequence. Je ne puis apporter trop de précaution ny de curiosité, sur une chose de tel merite, & non mienne”.

Edition entirely corrected and edited by Marie de Gournay

Having learned, that this edition had already been printed, Marie de Gournay rushed to printers in order to check the production and make corrections where needed: “It is clear that exceptional care was taken to ensure the accuracy of this edition. This was no doubt partly due to the vigilance of the printer [L’Angelier had in fact already printed an earlier edition in 1588, and he produced 4 further ones until 1604] but especially due to the zeal of Mlle de Gournay.

“Probably working on the sheets before binding, she corrected by hand about twenty further errors and these ink-corrections are found in almost all copies. Since Mlle de Gournay explains and lists these ink corrections at the end of her preface we may assume that the last page of the preface was printed after the first series of ink-corrections” (Sayce).

Having befriended Montaigne since 1584, Marie de Gournay “had found in his thoughts a kindred mind. A year and half after Montaigne death his widow Françoise de La Chassaigne sent to Marie de Gournay in Paris one of the final drafts of the Essais to have them printed. Françoise also included Marie de Gournay’s novella, which had been found in his papers, and invited to visit her and her daughter Léonor. Marie published her Novella that year, and in the following year produced the 1595 posthumous edition of the Essais with a long preface by herself as editor.

Her literary career begun, she spent about 16 months from early 1595 to 1597 at the Château of Montaigne. Here she continued her friendship with Montaigne through friendship with his widow and daughter and through long hours of work in the tower lined with the thousands of volumes which had inspired Montaigne’s essays. Eight more editions where to appear through her editorship” (Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Marie de Gournay, Editor of the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, in : Sixteenth Century Journal, XVII, 3).

Autograph Corrections

This copy contains at least 14 autograph corrections by Marie de Gournay : 7, line 1 ; 23, lines 11 & 18 ; 114 line 15 ; 114 line 31 ; 201 line 2 ; 264 line 1 ; 445, line 28 ; 449, line 34 ; 454, line 24. Second part : 77, line 26 ; 103 line 12 ; 113, line 21 ; 138, line 24. The errata is in second state (with 49 errors) and bears the printed title Fautes à corriger en l’Impression de quelques Exemplaires. This second state is less common according to Sayce & Maskell. “The Errata exists in two states which occur indifferently in the L’Angelier and Sonnius copies. The first state is slightly commoner than the second, the proportion being approximately 5 to 4. The second state has three extra corrections and three variants in the existing corrections”. Pages 87-88 are misnumbered 96-97, and page 92 misnumbered 76. The verso of the title with the printer’s privilege dated 15 October 1594. 

Small occasional waterstain at head, small worming notably towards the end of book two and at the beginning book three. Quire 3K (pp. 109-120) mis stitched and slightly loose.

A fine and tall copy of the rarer Sonnius issue.