| Description |
v, 569 pages ; 17 cm. |
| Series |
Viking portable library [41] |
|
Viking portable library.
|
| Contents |
Philosophical dictionary. Candide. Zadig. Micromegas. Story of a good Brahmin. Letters. Selections from the English letters. Essay on the manners and spirit of nations. Lisbon earthquake. |
| Summary |
"The Portable Voltaire" is an excellent compendium of the major works of the man who became the most famous iconoclast of the French Enlightenment. One of the attractions of this particular volume is the introduction by Ben Ray Redman, who delivers with witty, flowing prose an extremely interesting short biography and a summary of the man's philosophy. Normally I don't bother to mention a book's introduction in a review, but Redman's is so good I make a notable exception. Voltaire was a man of contrasts. He was sickly and feeble but miraculously managed to extend his lifespan to eighty-four years, travel abroad, and survive in prison; he was made wealthy by various benefactors and seemed generally happy but could be very cynical and antagonistic in his writing; and most notoriously, he was a deist whose hatred of Christianity could make him appear to be an atheist. Most of what he hated about Christianity was the clergy--their hypocrisy, their adherence to practices he found absurd, their conceit that everything in the universe is made exclusively for man's consumption and amusement--and the superstition and fanaticism exhibited by the more extreme practitioners of the faith. -- from http://www.amazon.com (June 16, 2014). |
| Subject |
Voltaire, 1694-1778 -- Translations into English.
|
|
Voltaire, 1694-1778 -- Criticism and interpretation.
|
|
Voltaire, 1694-1778. (OCoLC)fst00061549
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
|
|
Translations. (OCoLC)fst01423791
|
| Added Author |
Redman, Ben Ray, 1896-1961, editor.
|
| Added Title |
Works. Selections. English. 1949
|
| Other Form: |
Online version: Voltaire, 1694-1778. Selections. English. 1949. Portable Voltaire. New York, Viking Press, 1949 (OCoLC)651787593 |
| ISBN |
0670010413 |
|
9780670010417 |
|
