What Do I Know?

Essential Essays

Michel de Montaigne, David Coward (Translator), Yiyun Li

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Pushkin Press Classics
23 October 2025

Literary essays; Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900

Series: Pushkin Deluxe Classics

A selection of Michel de Montaigne's most profound, searching essays, in a new translation and stunning hardback edition featuring an introduction by Yiyun Li

'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 reflection 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 most ingenious essays appears in a lucid new translation by the prize-winning David Coward. What Do I Know? offers the modern reader profound insight into a great Renaissance mind.

By: Michel de Montaigne
Introduction by: Yiyun Li
Translated by: David Coward (Translator)
Imprint: Pushkin Press Classics
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
ISBN: 9781782278832
ISBN 10: 1782278834
Series: Pushkin Deluxe Classics
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 23 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was born on his family estate in Aquitaine, not far from Bordeaux. Raised speaking Greek and Latin, he studied law before embarking on a career of public service, first as a counselor of court in Périgueux and Bordeaux, then as a courtier to Charles IX. Following the death of his father, Montaigne retired from public life to the Tower of his château to read and write. He published the first two volumes of his landmark Essays in 1580, with a third following in 1588; the complete Essays appeared posthumously in 1595.