ABSTRACT
All literature, it may be argued, depends for its existence on the literary texts which preceded it, whether or not it draws directly on them as its sources, and the proposition is nowhere more palpably true than in the Essais. The Montaigne of the Essais, as opposed, for example, to the Montaigne who was mayor of Bordeaux, is above all a reader: a highly intelligent one whose dialogue with the books he reads is instructive more, as he himself would say, for its method than its matter. This chapter presents a sketch of Montaigne's practice of reading: the kinds of books he avowedly read and preferred, the uses to which he puts his reading, and the evaluative or descriptive comments he makes. It then considers how the Essais themselves are offered to the reader. The characteristics of Montaigne's own writing, as he sees them, which chiefly disqualify a mediocre reader are density, discontinuity and obliqueness.
