de Montaigne, Michel [Author]; Louandre, Charles [Editor]; James, Henry [owner]

ESSAIS DE MONTAIGNE SUIVIS DE SA CORRESPONDANCE [Four Volumes, Complete] [Signed by Henry James]

Paris: G. Charpentier, n.p. Early Printing. Octavo, four volumes. In Good minus condition. Half-bound in brown leather, with marbled paper boards. Volumes 1 and 4 have a significant loss of leather to spine, and are lacking the raised bands and labels. Volumes 2 and 3 have paneled spines, with chipping to leather, but maroon and brown labels are intact with gilt titling and ornamentation. Boards have soiling and chipping to edges. Volume 1 has discoloration to leather, and rubbing wear along the front board. Volume 1 and 4 boards are detached from the textblock. Volume 2 has a detached front board, and loose rear board. Volume 3 front board is loose and rear board is detached. Textblock has age toning and foxing throughout, and stains to some pages throughout. Volume 1 is signed by Henry James (1843-1916) on the front free end page. Text in French. Pieces of the spines and a label preserved in an envelope. Shelved in Room A.

CONTENTS: VOL I: ([4] xlii, [2], 441 pages)-- VOL II: ([4], 552 pages)-- VOL III: ([4], 518 pages)-- VOL IV: ([4], 506 pages).

1409062

Special Collections - Upstairs

Price: $6,000

NOTES

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a Renaissance era French philosopher. His "Essais," originally published in 1580, popularized essay as a literary genre in France and England, influencing both thought and style.
Henry James (1843-1916) was an American-British author. James, best known for his novels, helped mark the transition between literary realism and literary modernism. He also authored essays, criticism, memoirs, and plays. While James seldom explicitly referenced Montaigne, it is known that the 1877 edition of Montaigne's Essais translated by Charles Cotton and edited by William Carew Hazlitt was in James' library at Lamb House. As James' was fluent in french, it is unsurprising that he possessed the Essais in both english translation and the original french. Moreover, James shared with Montaigne a similar 'conservative skepticism' about one's relationship to the world, truth, and self - a common commitment which informs the structure and subjects of Montaigne's essays as well as the rich, recursive textures of James' later prose style. As Mrs. Prest says in The Aspern Papers, echoing Montaigne's famous question Que sais-Je? “The truth is God’s, it isn’t man’s; we had better leave it alone. Who can judge it—who can say?”