The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire

by Edited by Nicholas Cronk

• ISBN13: 9780521849739
• ISBN10: 052184973X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-03-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

As a leading thinker of the European Enlightenment, Voltaire is a central figure in France's collective cultural memory. The popularity of Candide has made him perhaps best known as a writer of tales. Yet these represent only a fraction of his entire Å"uvre. Voltaire created a style of authorship which made him the most famous writer in Europe and made him a figurehead for a certain style of writing and thinking. This Companion covers his plays, fiction, pamphlets, correspondence, biblical criticism, and historical, political and philosophical thought, to give a wide-ranging view of his writings. The most comprehensive book on Voltaire available in English, it makes accessible the most recent research in France as well as the English-speaking world, in a series of original essays and a guide to sources. The essays demonstrate why Voltaire remains an essential point of reference in defining the modern intellectual today.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
List of contributors	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Chronology	p. x
List of abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
The making of a name: a life of Voltaire	p. 17
Voltaire and authorship	p. 31
Voltaire: philosopher or philosophe?	p. 47
Voltaire and clandestine manuscripts	p. 65
Voltaire and the myth of England	p. 79
Voltaire's masks: theatre and theatricality	p. 93
Voltaire as story-teller	p. 109
Candide	p. 125
Voltaire and history	p. 139
Voltaire's correspondence	p. 153
Voltaire: pamphlets and polemic	p. 167
Voltaire and the politics of toleration	p. 179
Voltaire and the Bible	p. 193
The Voltaire effect	p. 205
Further reading	p. 219
Index	p. 225
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