MONTAIGNE, Michel Eyquem de (1533-1592). The Essayes or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses. Translated from French into English by John Florio. London: Valentine Sims for Edward Blount, 1603. 3 parts bound in one volume, 2 o (268 x 180 mm). Complete with blank 2Q4 at end of the second part, p1 leaf of commedatory verses by Danyel, printed correction slip pasted to B1r correcting "towns" to read "vyle," 3 leaves of errata [p2 and two unsigned leaves at end]. Three letterpress title-pages. (Some light dampstaining, a few headlines trimmed close.) Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked). FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. Florio was candid about his principles as a translator: "Why, then, belike I have done by Montaigne as Terence by Menander, made good French no good English. If I have done no worse, and it be no worse taken, it is well. As he, if no poet, yet I am no thief, since I say of whom I had it, rather to imitate his and his author's negligence than any backbiter's obscure diligence. His house I set before you, perhaps without his trappings, and his meat without sauce" ("To the Courteous Reader"). His tendency to reinvent his material not withstanding, Florio produced a work highly influential in its time, as the numerous editions which follow show. Montaigne's Essays were the earliest of the form, inventing a mode of discourse and rhetoric that reached across languages and disciplines. Of Florio's translation, one cannot underestimate its influence on English writers and thinkers of the time. Diverse passages in the late Shakespeare show its influence, most especially Gonzago's description of the ideal state in The Tempest , as do the works of Burton, Milton, Hobbes and Locke. Bartlett 271; Grolier Langland to Wither 102; Pforzheimer 378; STC 18041.
MONTAIGNE, Michel Eyquem de (1533-1592). The Essayes or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses. Translated from French into English by John Florio. London: Valentine Sims for Edward Blount, 1603. 3 parts bound in one volume, 2 o (268 x 180 mm). Complete with blank 2Q4 at end of the second part, p1 leaf of commedatory verses by Danyel, printed correction slip pasted to B1r correcting "towns" to read "vyle," 3 leaves of errata [p2 and two unsigned leaves at end]. Three letterpress title-pages. (Some light dampstaining, a few headlines trimmed close.) Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked). FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. Florio was candid about his principles as a translator: "Why, then, belike I have done by Montaigne as Terence by Menander, made good French no good English. If I have done no worse, and it be no worse taken, it is well. As he, if no poet, yet I am no thief, since I say of whom I had it, rather to imitate his and his author's negligence than any backbiter's obscure diligence. His house I set before you, perhaps without his trappings, and his meat without sauce" ("To the Courteous Reader"). His tendency to reinvent his material not withstanding, Florio produced a work highly influential in its time, as the numerous editions which follow show. Montaigne's Essays were the earliest of the form, inventing a mode of discourse and rhetoric that reached across languages and disciplines. Of Florio's translation, one cannot underestimate its influence on English writers and thinkers of the time. Diverse passages in the late Shakespeare show its influence, most especially Gonzago's description of the ideal state in The Tempest , as do the works of Burton, Milton, Hobbes and Locke. Bartlett 271; Grolier Langland to Wither 102; Pforzheimer 378; STC 18041.
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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