He is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. His work is noted for its merging of casual anecdotes [ 6 ] and autobiography with intellectual insight. Montaigne had a direct influence on numerous Western writers; his massive volume Essais contains some of the most influential essays ever written.
During his lifetime, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that "I am myself the matter of my book" was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne came to be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt that began to emerge at that time.
The family was very wealthy. His great-grandfather, Ramon Felipe Eyquem, had made a fortune as a herring merchant and had bought the estate in , thus becoming the Lord of Montaigne. During a great part of Montaigne's life his mother lived near him, and even survived him; but she is mentioned only twice in his essays.
Montaigne's relationship with his father, however, is frequently reflected upon and discussed in his essays. Montaigne's education began in early childhood and followed a pedagogical plan that his father had developed, refined by the advice of the latter's humanist friends.
Soon after his birth Montaigne was brought to a small cottage, where he lived the first three years of life in the sole company of a peasant family, in order to, according to the elder Montaigne, "draw the boy close to the people, and to the life conditions of the people, who need our help".
