Montaigne by Stefan Zweig
Translated by Will Stone
Pushkin Press Classics, December 1, 2026
I grabbed a review copy of Montaigne by Stefan Zweig, published by Pushkin Press Classics, with barely a thought for my choice. I’d not read anything by Zweig, though he was prolific before his death by suicide in 1942 and his body of work seems like the kind of literature I would like. I’ve only read a few essays by Michel de Montaigne, and then in translation to English, despite the fact that I have been reading French literature for more than thirty years. This isn’t even a new translation of Zweig’s book; it was first published about a decade ago. But there is a new introduction that gives context for Zweig’s life and work, which was helpful.
I’ll be honest: Like other editions from Pushkin Classics, this book has a great cover. I think that’s why I downloaded it. Sometimes, or maybe often, you can judge a book by its cover.
I learned from the introduction that Zweig’s writing was prodigious and popular, that he was insatiably curious, that he loved French culture. I learned that like so many, he fled Nazi Germany, and he spent his years in exile in the US, the UK, and Brazil, among other places. I learned that an essay of Montaigne’s may have influenced Zweig to carry out his planned suicide.
Then, at last, I started reading Zweig’s biography of Montaigne. It’s short; the whole book is only 176 pages. It covers the basics, or at least what I think of as the basics since these are facts I already knew about the sixteenth-century author. Prepare yourself for major spoilers from an eighty-five-year-old book about an author who lived five centuries ago.
Montaigne is wealthy, but his family’s noble name was fairly new, having been purchased by his grandfather. He has a huge estate and a small family, neither of which he really cares much for. He flees the plague while his city suffers immensely, which is less than upstanding behavior. He shuts himself away in a tower of his chateau to write his Essais. He emerges and declares himself done with all that and takes off for an extended vacation. While in Italy, he is inexplicably but enthusiastically elected mayor of his city and is forced by the king to return to take up his post. He writes more Essais.
What made me love this book (besides the cover) is Zweig’s sheer joy at writing about Montaigne. I’ve never read a biography like it. He just writes about how interesting he finds this writer and his work. He sees flaws in Montaigne’s writing and his character, but that only bolsters his case. He ties Montaigne’s concerns to his own, and to the time in which he was—and we are still—living. I mean, look at this:
In such epochs where the highest values of life—our peace, our independence, our basic rights, all that makes our existence more pure, more beautiful, all that justifies it—are sacrifieced to the demon inhabiting a dozen fanatic and ideologues, all the problems of the man who fears for his humanity come down to the same question: how to remain free? How to preserve the incorruptible lucidity of my spirit faced with all the threats and dangers of sectarian turmoil? How to keep humanity intact in the throes of bestiality? How to escape the tyrannical demands that the state and Church seek to impose on me? How to protect that unique part of my soul against enforced submission to rules and measure dictated from outside? How to safeguard the deepest region of my spirit and its matter which belongs to me alone, my body, my health, my thoughts, my feelings, from the danger of being sacrificed to the deranged prejudices of others, to serve interests which are not my own?
It is to this question and this question alone that Montaigne dedicated his life and his strength.
Oh, just that, Stefan? Just that little question of maintaining one’s humanity and freedom in the face of tyranny? This one paragraph could stand as an argument for reading both Zweig and Montaigne. (And thanks to Will Stone for the translation of what I can only imagine was some knotty German.)
Is this the best book by Zweig or the best biography of Montaigne? I can’t imagine that it is, but I haven’t read much to say for sure. But it does the things I want books to do. First, it makes me think deeply about the ideas on the page and how they interact with myself as a reader and my self in the world. I think the passage I quoted above is a good example of that kind of writing.
Second, this book makes me want to read other books by Zweig (maybe more Pushkin Classics with their pretty covers) and the Essais themselves in French. Books that make me want to read other books are the best.
Finally, this book unstuck an issue I’ve been having with a nonfiction book I’ve been working on in a half-assed way for years and in a concentrated way for most of 2026. I could not figure out how to write about a medieval text that I love, one that isn’t much known outside academic experts. Stefan Zweig, in writing about Montaigne, who he loved even as a twenty-year-old student, shows the reader why he loves him, faults and all. He explains why Montaigne is still relevant to him and to all of humankind. It’s a short book that sets a high bar, but now I can at least see the bar for my own book, where before I could not.
As every student essay says, in an effort to pad out the required word count, “essay” means “to try.” Zweig and Montaigne have given me a new way to try tackling a challenging project. Maybe this book will unstick something for you too. Or at least get you to read more Zweig and Montaigne.
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