Marie le Jars de Gournay was the editor of the first complete text of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne's Essais; author of feminist, moral, and religious tracts; and a literary writer and theorist. Born into an aristocratic family in Paris, she mastered Latin and translated Diogenes Laertius's Life of Socrates in her youth. At eighteen or nineteen, having read with enthusiasm Montaigne's Essais, books 1 and 2, she met with the author, which inspired her novel. Their friendship led to her becoming his "adopted daughter," which, in the sixteenth century, implied a literary partnership. Thus, in 1594, Montaigne's widow sent her the final manuscript of his Essais, which Gournay edited, later annotated, and published, together with a long "Préface," in 1595.

The "Préface" attempts to defend Montaigne against the main criticisms advanced by his contemporaries: (1) Against the charge that his Latinisms...