Montaigne – Les Essais – Pierre Coste Edition, 3 vols, Paris 1725 – Sir James Stuart Provenance

MONTAIGNE, Michel de. Les Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne. Donnéz sur les plus anciennes et les plus correctes éditions… Avec des Notes, & de nouvelles Tables des Matières… Par Pierre Coste. Nouvelle édition, plus ample & plus correcte que la dernière de Londres. Paris: Par la Société, 1725. Three volumes, quarto.

A complete three-volume set of the important 1725 Pierre Coste edition of Montaigne's Essais, in contemporary calf and with distinguished Canadian legal provenance.

This was the second edition prepared by Pierre Coste, following his London edition of 1724, and was substantially enlarged and corrected. Coste based his text closely upon the 1595 edition and supplemented Montaigne's essays with extensive notes, documentary material and letters. The 1725 edition has long been regarded as one of the significant eighteenth-century editions of Montaigne.

The first volume contains the engraved portrait of Montaigne by Jacques Chéreau le jeune, dated 1725, facing the handsome title printed in red and black. Importantly, this copy also retains the separately numbered pp. 196–209** containing the twenty-nine sonnets of Étienne de La Boétie, a feature sometimes absent from copies encountered on the market.

The set has an excellent provenance. Each of the three volumes bears the engraved armorial bookplate of Sir James Stuart, Bart. (1780–1853), Chief Justice of Lower Canada, with the motto Justitiae propositique tenax. Stuart was appointed Chief Justice of Lower Canada in 1838 and created a baronet in 1841, retaining the chief justiceship until his death in 1853.

An early ink ownership inscription, “Stuart”, appears at the head of one title. There is also an old pencil note recording the set as “Collated & complete”, followed by what appears to be a reference to Bernard Quaritch.

The volumes remain in their contemporary full calf bindings, the spines with five raised bands, gilt floral ornaments, red morocco lettering and numbering pieces, and the date 1725 gilt at the foot. The three volumes still make a particularly attractive shelf set despite their structural faults. The text blocks themselves are notably well preserved: broad-margined, generally clean and crisp, with only scattered age-toning, spotting and minor marks.

Condition

Offered entirely unrestored and unconserved. Both boards of Volume I are detached but present. The front joints of Volumes II and III are cracked and unstable and should be handled with care. The original calf is rubbed and worn, with abrasions, surface cracking, losses at corners and board edges, and wear to the spine labels; the Volume I numbering piece has some loss. Further wear to heads and tails of the spines as photographed. Internally much better, with a clean and well-preserved text overall. Portrait present. The important starred La Boétie section is present and complete. The set has been collated and is complete.

An appealing copy of a substantial early edition of Montaigne, retaining its original eighteenth-century bindings and with unusually strong provenance from the library of one of the leading judicial figures of nineteenth-century British North America. Offered unrestored, leaving any decision regarding conservation to the next owner.