Montaigne

Translated by Will Stone
This classic biography of Michel de Montaigne—one of the founding fathers of humanism—is a heartfelt argument for the importance of intellectual freedom and tolerance.
 
Written by one of the 20th century’s most popular authors during WWII, Montaigne is a passionate and readable biography of the great Renaissance humanist. Stefan Zweig draws strong parallels between Montaigne’s age—when Europe was torn in two by conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism—and his own, in which Fascism and Communism were on the verge of destroying the pan-continental liberal culture he was born into and loved dearly. Just as Montaigne sought to remain aloof from the factionalism of his day, so Zweig tried to the last to defend his freedom of thought and argue for peace and compromise.  

One of the final works Zweig wrote before his suicide, this is both a brilliantly impassioned portrait of a great mind and a moving plea for tolerance in a world ruled by cruelty.
Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear.In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York—a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel,Beware of Pity, and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press. View titles by Stefan Zweig

About

This classic biography of Michel de Montaigne—one of the founding fathers of humanism—is a heartfelt argument for the importance of intellectual freedom and tolerance.
 
Written by one of the 20th century’s most popular authors during WWII, Montaigne is a passionate and readable biography of the great Renaissance humanist. Stefan Zweig draws strong parallels between Montaigne’s age—when Europe was torn in two by conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism—and his own, in which Fascism and Communism were on the verge of destroying the pan-continental liberal culture he was born into and loved dearly. Just as Montaigne sought to remain aloof from the factionalism of his day, so Zweig tried to the last to defend his freedom of thought and argue for peace and compromise.  

One of the final works Zweig wrote before his suicide, this is both a brilliantly impassioned portrait of a great mind and a moving plea for tolerance in a world ruled by cruelty.

Author

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear.In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York—a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel,Beware of Pity, and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press. View titles by Stefan Zweig