A Large-Paper Copy of the Definitive 1595 Edition from the Library of the Marquise de Lambert

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 traces of ownership from the celebrated Parisian salonnière Marquise de Lambert. 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 larger and numerous smaller 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 central ornamental tooling, the corners decorated with arabesque tools and additional gilt ornament. Gilt board edges and turn-ins; marbled endleaves and entirely gilt edges. Signed “Rivière & Son” at foot of spine. Corners minimally rubbed; spine slightly faded and lightly worn.

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.

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, ownership inscription of the Marquise de Lambert crossed through, together with an earlier notation: “Au demy papier Elzivir des Sainctes Valerius Unik y Gomez Farias.”

Later in the library of William Ivy Gomez Ramsden (1846–1910), with his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown.

Literature

Adams M 1622; BM STC French 317; Brunet III, 1836; Cioranesco 15283; Ebert 14271; Graesse IV, 579; Lonchamp, Français II, 330; PMM 95; Tchemerzine VIII, 408; Ziegenfuß/Jung II, 169. For Rivière: Ramsden, London 1823–1900, p. 218.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II.
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II