'This new edition of Montaigne's most important essays is a superb achievement, one that successfully brings together in accessible form the work of two major writers of Renaissance France. The translation by James B. Atkinson and David Sices is accurate, clear, readable, and conveys Montaigne's personable style elegantly to modern readers of English. The notes are authoritative and learned, but never intrusive, and the Introduction beautifully places Montaigne's work in context. No less impressive is the inclusion of an elegant English version of La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, which is both a key to understanding much of Montaigne and a major piece of early modern political thought.' —Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley