What Do I Know?
Essential Essays
by Michel de Montaigne
You must sign in to see if this title is available for request. Sign In or Register Now
Part of Pushkin Press Classics
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Nov 04 2025 | Archive Date Oct 03 2025
Steerforth & Pushkin | Pushkin Press Classics
Talking about this book? Use #WhatDoIKnow #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
Stunning paperback edition of this fresh translation of Montaigne’s most profound, searching essays, with an introduction from Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose
This gift-worthy collection of 16 essays by “the father of the essay” is a short, accessible introduction to his work, offering a fascinating glimpse inside a great Renaissance mind
“I myself am the subject of my book.” So wrote Montaigne in the introductory note to his Essays, the book that marked the birth of the modern essay form. In works of probing intelligence and idiosyncratic observation, Montaigne moved from intimate personal observation to roving theories of the conduct of kings and cannibals, the effects of sorrow and fear, and the fallibility of human memory and judgement.
This new selection of Montaigne’s 16 most ingenious essays appears in a lucid new translation by the prize-winning David Coward. What Do I Know? gives the modern reader profound insight into a great Renaissance mind.
What Do I Know? is divided into 3 sections and includes:
MONTAIGNE ON MONTAIGNE
On Sorrow, On how our Actions are to be judged by the Intention, On Idling, On Liars, That we should not be considered happy until we are dead
ON THE PURSUIT OF REASON
On Fear, To tell true from false, it is folly to rely on our own capacities, How we can cry and laugh at the same thing, On Solitude, On the Uncertainty of our Judgement, On Drunkenness
ON GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNORS
On Cannibals, On the Inequality that exists between us, On Sleep, On our lease of life, On Carriages
This gift-worthy collection of 16 essays by “the father of the essay” is a short, accessible introduction to his work, offering a fascinating glimpse inside a great Renaissance mind
“I myself am the subject of my book.” So wrote Montaigne in the introductory note to his Essays, the book that marked the birth of the modern essay form. In works of probing intelligence and idiosyncratic observation, Montaigne moved from intimate personal observation to roving theories of the conduct of kings and cannibals, the effects of sorrow and fear, and the fallibility of human memory and judgement.
This new selection of Montaigne’s 16 most ingenious essays appears in a lucid new translation by the prize-winning David Coward. What Do I Know? gives the modern reader profound insight into a great Renaissance mind.
What Do I Know? is divided into 3 sections and includes:
MONTAIGNE ON MONTAIGNE
On Sorrow, On how our Actions are to be judged by the Intention, On Idling, On Liars, That we should not be considered happy until we are dead
ON THE PURSUIT OF REASON
On Fear, To tell true from false, it is folly to rely on our own capacities, How we can cry and laugh at the same thing, On Solitude, On the Uncertainty of our Judgement, On Drunkenness
ON GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNORS
On Cannibals, On the Inequality that exists between us, On Sleep, On our lease of life, On Carriages
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781782278832 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 192 |
Available on NetGalley
NetGalley Reader (PDF)
NetGalley Shelf App (PDF)
Send to Kindle (PDF)
Download (PDF)
