The Essays of Michel de Montaigne ...

The text of this edition has been set with a view to enabling the reader to distinguish at a glance the three successive stages in the composition of the Essays. In Books I and II the text of the first edition, that of 1580, appears in the ordinary roman type, in which these words are set. Additions made by Montaigne in 1588, in the so-called "Fifth Edition," are placed between symbols, thus. The manuscript additions made by the author between 1588 and 1592 in the Bordeaux Copy, revised for a "Sixth Edition," are set in these italics. Verbal changes in this revision, when they affect only the style without appreciably altering the meaning, are disregarded. In Book III the edition of 1588 represents the first form of the Essays, and as there are therefore only two stages of the text to be distinguished, it is done by means of roman and italic type, the use of symbols being eliminated. -- Explanation of the setting of this text