The Essayes Or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses: First written by him in French. And now done into English By... John Florio.

London: Printed by Val[entine] Sims for Edward Blount,, 1603. One of the great translations of the Elizabethan age First edition in English, translated by John Florio. Considered the most important Elizabethan translation of any contemporary text, its influence on English writers and philosophers of the time, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Hobbes, and Locke, is inestimable. "Florio's style is clearly visible throughout the translation. His extraordinary skill in the use of alliteration, his ability to embroider and amplify the French original through the addition of English synonyms, his sense of rhythm, his art of turning French proverbs and expressions into idiomatic English equivalents, and his experimentation with new-formed English words (such as 'conscientious', 'endeare', 'efface', 'facilitate') made his Montaigne one of the great translations of the Elizabethan age" (ODNB). "Montaigne startles the common reader at each fresh encounter, if only because he is unlike any preconception we bring to him. He can be interpreted as skeptic, humanist, Catholic, Stoic, even Epicurean… His scope and capaciousness sometimes approach Shakespearean dimensions… Montaigne's [is]… the first personality ever put forward by a writer as the matter of his work. Walt Whitman and Norman Mailer are indirect descendants of Montaigne, even as Emerson and Nietzsche are his direct progeny… He represents - not everyman… but very nearly every man who has the desire, ability, and opportunity to think and to read" (Bloom, Western Canon, 147-51). "Montaigne devised the essay form in which to express his personal convictions and private meditations, a form in which he can hardly be said to have been anticipated… He finds a place in the present canon, however, chiefly for his consummate representation of the enlightened skepticism of the 16th century, to which Bacon, Descartes, and Newton were to provide the answers in the next" (PMM 95). "The unfolding of a mind of genius in dialogue with itself and with the world, a Renaissance humanist speaking to all humanity" (Hollier, New History of French Literature, 250). Folio (275 x 184 mm). Modern full calf to Jacobean style, spine compartments gilt, sides with oval centrepieces within gilt and blind frame, old gilt edges. Books 2 and 3 with separate dated title pages but continuous register; verses by Daniel and errata (¶1,2: "these 2 leaves are frequently lacking" - ESTC); complete with blank 2Q4 and 2 final errata leaves 3K5,6. Woodcut vignettes of altars on verso of first title-page, woodcut headpieces and initials, a few headpieces composed of printer's ornaments, woodcut tailpiece cartouche at the end of the first book; with the headline on A2v uncorrected ("The Epistle"), with the printed slip-cancel on B1r, correcting "towns" at line 25. Title leaf remargined at inner edge and restored in upper margin, the restoration costing the upper serif of the first letter on verso, four small stains to title leaf where old ink inscriptions spot-cleaned, associated stain in gutter of A2, a few minor marks elsewhere, paper generally clean and strong, a very good copy. Langland to Wither 102; Luborsky & Ingram 18041; Pforzheimer 378; STC 18041.