The Companion to Voltaire

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 œuvre. Voltaire created a style of authorship which made him the most famous writer in Europe and turned his name into a brand 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.

Contents:

The making of a name : a life of Voltaire / Geoffrey Turnovsky 
Voltaire and authorship / Nicholas Cronk 
Voltaire : philosopher or philosophe? / David Beeson and Nicholas Cronk 
Voltaire and clandestine manuscripts / Miguel Benítez 
Voltaire and the myth of England / John Leigh 
Voltaire's masks : theatre and theatricality / Russell Goulbourne 
Voltaire as story-teller / Gianni Iotti 
Candide / Philip Stewart
Voltaire and history / Catherine Volpilhac-Auger 
Voltaire's correspondence / Christiane Mervaud 
Voltaire : pamphlets and polemic / Olivier Ferret 
Voltaire and the politics of toleration / John Renwick 
Voltaire and the Bible / Graham Gargett 
The Voltaire effect / Daniel Brewer.