The originality of Montaigne’s literary project during his time was to have been able to combine an aristocratic and private writing style with a public publishing ambition, which is linked to the circulation of his book in the “bookseller’s shop.” The Essays thus are part of a long publishing history, whose stages corresponded to as many possible kinds of reading: the various editions (1580, 1582, 1588), planned out by the writer himself, the posthumous edition (1595), scrupulously put together by Marie de Gournay, along with its avatars until the nineteenth century, the debate about the Bordeaux Copy, and finally the choice of the best text on philological grounds.