Michael Dirda: Well, Montaigne is so archetypally human and humane--he is, as I've said before, certainly among the most admirable people who have ever written. His last essay, "On Experience" is one of the great nonfiction reading experiences of a lifetime, while his thoughts on sex are amazingly insightful and modern. I love the fact that you find them in the coyly titled "On Some Lines of Vergil." There are lots of translations of Montaigne and nearly all of them can be commended in some fashion. John Florio's Renaissance version was read by Shakespeare (who borrowed from it), and is an established classic. Cohen is a good all around French translator and you won't go wrong with him. But two modern versions demand particular attention, as both were done by the most eminent Montaigne scholars of, respectively, this generation and the previous one: Michael Screech is an extremely learned authority on 16th ce-ntury French thought and his version is used in the most recent Penguins. Donald Frame is the author of a standard life of Montaigne and his translation was commended by my favorite literary critic Cyril Connolly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/books/dirda0308.htm
Translations in english:
The Charles Cotton translation (1686) is freely available:
Donald M. Frame's translation (1958) is available from Everyman's:
Michael Screech's translation (1993) is available from Penguin.