SOURCE: McKinley, Mary. “An Editorial Revival: Gournay's 1617 Preface to the Essais.” Montaigne Studies 8, nos. 1-2 (October 1996): 193-201.

In the essay below, McKinley maintains that de Gournay's restoration of her long preface to the 1617 edition of Montaigne's Essais after removing it from the 1595 edition indicates the self-assurance that she had gained as a writer and editor in the interval between the two publications.

The 1617 edition of Montaigne's Essais marks a significant turning point in Marie de Gournay's often stormy editorial career. In the new paratextual material of that edition, Gournay foregrounds her collaboration and conflicts with the book's printers, introducing her new and ostensibly begrudging role as translator of Montaigne's Latin quotations. Her introduction to those translations reveals a woman affirming her role as faithful editor while expressing more than a little irritation at the compromising exigencies imposed by the printers.

An even more striking assertion of Gournay's new...