Skip to content

Montaigne Corpus

Direct access URL for subscribers: https://num.classiques-garnier.com/montaigne

ALL THE EDITIONS OF MONTAIGNE’S COMPLETE WORKS, FROM THE 16th CENTURY TO NOWADAYS

With the participation of the Ministry of Research, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS); the National Centre of Literature (CNL), the School of doctoral studies at the Sorbonne, the Library of Bordeaux, the Swiss National Fund of Scientific Research, the Educational authority of Basel University

All the works published in Montaigne’s lifetime and after his death by his «daughter-in-law» Marie de Gournay, all the editions published from the 16th to the 20th century, their annotation and critical apparatus, and also the best editions of the complete works in Italian, English, German and Spanish go to make up the Corpus of Montaigne’s Complete Works.

This Corpus Montaigne is the result of twenty years’ dedicated research: it contains all the different editions of the works of Montaigne in the 16th and 17th centuries, published from the manuscripts and the printed originals.
These editions offer three different levels:
• the diplomatic editions in text-mode, exact copy of the printed originals (several typographical fonts were created to this end). Diplomatic editions are the only way to ensure safeguard and exploitation of all the data contained in the original texts ;
• the critically established text, in text mode (correction of abbreviations and misprints, critical editing of the text).
• modernised editions (modernised spelling).

The corpus also contains some twenty great editions of the works of Montaigne edited in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries with their complete critical apparatus.

This is the exceptional opportunity for scholars to have at hand the complete collection of Montaigne’s works in their different states and to study the greatest thinker, philosopher and writer of his period through new possibilities.

The Corpus of Montaigne’s Complete Works is a scholarly reference work and a unsurpassable summa for the study of Montaigne and also for specialists of the 16th and 17th centuries and of classical philosophy.

CONTENTS

Original editions

- Essais de Montaigne, during the author’s lifetime: 1580 (Bordeaux, Millanges); 1582 (Bordeaux, Millanges); 1587 (Paris, Richer); 1588, (Paris, L’Angelier)
- Essais, posthumous editions called de Gournay editions: 1595 (L’Angelier); 1598 (L’Angelier); 1600 (L’Angelier); 1602 (L’Angelier); 1604 (L’Angelier); 1611 (Gueffier); 1617 (Nivelle); 1625 (Dallin); 1635 (Camusat). With an option in modern spelling for the 1595 edition.
- Théologie naturelle, editions of 1569 (Paris, Gourbin); 1581 (Paris, Gourbin); 1603 (Rouen, Beauvais); 1605 (Tournon, Michel and Soubron); 1611 (Paris, Du Bray). With an option in modern spelling for the 1581 edition.
- Raymond Sebond, Theologia naturalis; establishment of the Latin text
- Journal de voyage: the four editions by M. de Querlon, 1774, Le Jay, Paris (in 1 vol. in-4°; in 3 vols. in-12°; in 2 vols. in-12°; in 2 vols. in-12°, without the Italian part), and 1775 (in 3 vols.). With an option in modern spelling.
- Marginalia (notes written by Montaigne in the margins of certain works in his library): Editions of Caesar, Quinte-Curce et Nicole Gilles
- Letters
- Ephémérides («Livre de raison» having belonged to Montaigne)
- Works by La Boétie edited by Montaigne, Paris, Morel, 1571, the Mesnagerie de Xenophon and Poemata ; 1572, the Vers François

Reeditions of the main editions of Montaigne’s works, from the 18th to the 20th century, in five languages, with their critical apparatus

1745: P. Coste, Londres (7 vols.)
1753-1754: J.D. Tietz, ed. in German, Leipzig (3 vols.)
1802: Naigeon, Paris (4 vols.)
1823: E. Johanneau, Paris (5 vols.)
1836: J.-V. Le Clerc, Paris (2 vols.)
1870 and 1873: R. Dezeimeris and H. Barckhausen, Bordeaux (2 vols.)
1873 and 1875: H. Motheau and D. Jouaust, Paris (4 vols.)
1872-1877: E. Courbet and Ch. Royer, Paris (4 vols.)
1906-1933: F. Strowski, Fr. Gibelin, P. Villey, Bordeaux (5 vols.)
1924-1941: A. Armaingaud, Paris (12 vols.)
1957: D. Frame, ed. in English, Stanford (1 vol.)
1966: F. Garavini, ed. in Italian, Adelphi (1 vol.)
1992: D. Picazo; A. Montojo, ed. in Spanish, Madrid (3 vols.)

Independent editions of the Journal de voyage

1842: W. Hazlitt, ed. in English, London
1889: D’Ancona, ed. in Italian, Città di Castello
1906: L. Lautrey, Paris
1908: O. Flake und W. Weigand, ed. in German, Münich und Leipzig
1928-1929: A. Armaingaud, Paris
1958: A. Cento, ed. in Italian, Florence
1994: J.M. Marinas; C. Thiebaut, ed. in Spanish, Madrid

RESEARCH FIELDS

Literature, philosophy, history, history of ideas

AUTHOR OF THE DATABASES

Claude Blum, professeur à la Sorbonne