Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays cover art

Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays

By: Michel de Montaigne
Narrated by: Peter Wickham
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £23.24

Buy Now for £23.24

About this listen

In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death. His voice, by turns lively, curious, digressive, ironic, and moving, is utterly captivating. The Essays feel less like a work of literature and more like an ongoing conversation with a very well-informed friend.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2021 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Essays History Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Politics & Government Social Sciences Nonfiction Witty Middle Ages
All stars
Most relevant
Much of this seems modern, so Putin, Trump or Xi can be fitted in to accounts of the manipulation of public opinion, and he's prepared to consider when his own lies were justified or self-serving. 'Public' means men; that seems to be the only area in which he's almost entirely of his time. He's delightful on the difficulties of writing despite having invented 'long form' journalism.

extraordinarily modern

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Peter Wickham is always great in anything he reads. Montaigne’s magnum opus is a core work in the history of European literature…and covers an amazing array of topics.

Superb narration of an important work

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.