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In 1580, Montaigne published in Bordeaux a book unique in its title: Essays. A literary genre was born. In a time when most books were about great people or events, or works of academic theology or philosophy, the author tells the reader that his only desire is to show himself “familiar and private”. He denies any intention of glory for himself or benefit to his reader:

“Had my intention been to forestall and purchase the world's opinion and favor, I would surely have adorned myself more quaintly, or kept a more grave or solemn march.”

In his opening message “To the Reader”, he declares his will to paint himself “in my simple, natural, and ordinary garb, without study or artifice, for it was myself I had to paint.” He ends the note by saying, “Thus, reader, I am myself the subject of my book; it is not worth your while to take up your time longer with such a frivolous matter.”

We must take these declarations of humility with a grain of salt, and indeed they may simply have been a literary strategy for the author of a work categorized as a “novelty” by its publisher – an author who, after all, was not then famous, and who had apparently not accomplished anything worth writing about. It is telling that, after a few editions of the Essays, and after he had become much better known, Montaigne would never modify this modest-sounding Preface to the reader.

Montaigne started writing his first essays (all very short) in 1571, when he was in his late thirties. Over the next 20 years, until his death in 1592, he would rewrite and republish the Essays several times. However, it would be false to believe that Montaigne was only a writer. He had diplomatic and political aspirations, and the literary aspect of his career always came after his political and public life, at least until he became very sick (kidney stones) after 1590.

In 1581, Montaigne became mayor of Bordeaux, the fifth-largest city in France at this time. In 1582, his publisher took advantage of his new political visibility to publish a second edition of the Essays. In 1588, with his growing notoriety, Montaigne published a third edition with copious additions and even added a third book with 13 new chapters. He was now published in Paris by one of the most successful publishers and book dealers of his time: Abel L'Angelier. Until his death, Montaigne would continue adding text in the margins of his copy of this Parisian edition.

There is a habit among modern editors of the Essays to segment Montaigne's text in three layers, often signaled by A, B, and C. These correspond to three different editions (1580, 1588, and the posthumous edition of 1595). The text of the first edition (1580) represents approximately 44 percent of the complete Essays. The additions between 1580 and 1588 (with the third book added) amount to another 33 percent of the total text, and the marginal manuscript additions written between 1588 and his death (published in the first posthumous edition of 1595 by Marie de Gournay) make up another 23 percent of a complete modern edition of the Essays.

However, the book was never intended to be read with these layers in mind. Such editorial artifice might help the modern reader to identify contradictions over time and across editions, but it also creates the impression of an evolution of the text which was never intended by Montaigne. As he pointed out:

“I am grown older by a great many years since my first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several persons; but whether better, I cannot determine” (Book III, Chapter 9).