A Large-Paper Copy of the Definitive 1595 Edition from the Library of Valentin Uhink y Gomez Farias
Michel de Montaigne, Les essais. Edition novvelle, trovvee apres le deceds de l’Autheur, reueuë & augmentée par luy d’vn tiers plus qu’aux precedentes Impreßions. Paris, Abel l’Angelier, 1595.
A handsome and generously margined copy of the definitive Renaissance edition of Montaigne’s Essais, preserved in an elegant nineteenth-century binding by Rivière & Son and carrying the old ownership name “De Calnet” and the bookplate of Valentin Uhink y Gomez Farias. The volume unites the final authorial form of one of the foundational texts of European literature with the refined tradition of nineteenth-century literary bookbinding.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
á4 é4 í4 A–Z6 Aa–Vv6 Xx4 Aaa–Sss6 Ttt–Vvv4 = 12 leaves, 523 pages, 231 pages.
With large woodcut publisher’s device on title, five woodcut headpieces, three woodcut tailpieces and numerous woodcut initials ranging from five to ten lines. Folio (323 × 207 mm).
The edition of 1595 is the first published after Montaigne’s death and remains the principal early text of the Essais. Prepared from annotated copies left by Montaigne to his adopted daughter Marie de Gournay, it preserves hundreds of authorial revisions and additions, enlarging the text by approximately one third beyond all previous editions.
The edition occupies a singular place in literary history. The earlier editions of 1580, 1582, and 1588 had already transformed European prose, but the posthumous 1595 edition presents Montaigne in his final intellectual form, shaped by years of continued revision and reflection.
Physical Description & Binding
Dark green morocco binding of the nineteenth century over six raised bands decorated with gilt fillets. Spine richly gilt and lettered in gilt; covers framed with double gilt fillets and a central gilt cartouche decorated with arabesques. Gilt board edges and turn-ins; marbled endleaves and entirely gilt edges. Signed “Rivière & Son” at foot of spine.
The binding was executed by the famous London firm Rivière & Son, among the most respected English binders of the nineteenth century. Their work combined French elegance with English solidity and became especially sought after by collectors assembling libraries of literary first editions and major continental classics.
The present copy remains especially attractive for its broad margins and harmonious proportions, preserving the monumental dignity of the folio format introduced for the final Renaissance editions of the Essais.
Spine faded; title page dusty and somewhat handled.
Montaigne and the Invention of the Modern Self
Written during the religious wars that devastated sixteenth-century France, the Essais emerged from Montaigne’s withdrawal from public life into the library tower of his château. There, surrounded by books and classical quotations painted onto the ceiling beams, he began transforming notes, reflections, anecdotes, and philosophical meditations into a radically new literary form.
Rather than constructing rigid systems of thought, Montaigne moved associatively through questions of death, friendship, education, custom, religion, uncertainty, vanity, and the instability of human judgment itself. The result was neither pure autobiography nor philosophy, but something entirely new: a literary exploration of consciousness unfolding in real time.
The Essais transformed the possibilities of prose. By choosing to write philosophical reflection in French rather than Latin, Montaigne helped establish the vernacular as a language capable of carrying serious intellectual thought with intimacy, flexibility, and psychological nuance.
The influence of the Essais extended across centuries. Pascal wrestled with Montaigne’s scepticism; the Enlightenment embraced him as a precursor; Nietzsche admired his honesty; Emerson, Proust, and Virginia Woolf later found in him an entirely modern sensibility.
Provenance
On the title-page, the old ownership name “De Calnet” beside a crossed-out, still older inscription.
Later in the library of Valentin Uhink y Gomez Farias (1846–1910), with his bookplate on the pastedown.
Literature
Wunderkammer, Catalogue 90, vol. II, entry 99b, p. 918.
Adams M 1622; BM STC French 317; Brunet III, 1836; Cioranesco 15283; Ebert 14271; Graesse IV, 579; Lonchamp, Français II, 330; PMM 95 (first edition); Tchemerzine VIII, 408; Ziegenfuß/Jung II, 169. For Rivière: Ramsden, London, p. 123; Nixon 1979, p. 218.
