A collection of Valéry's essays and speeches on a wide range of philosophers, novelists, and poets Masters and Friends is a collection of Paul Valéry's essays and speeches on writers who shaped his mind, interests, and affections: Descartes, Voltaire, Stendhal, Goethe, Villon, Nietzsche, Pascal, Proust, Huysmans, Pierre Louÿs, Nerval, Rilke, Bergson, and others. The volume also includes an appendix of Valéry's private comments on these writers in his Notebooks . The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, the first collected edition of the writer in English, features new translations, the original French on facing pages for poetic works, and editorial notes.