David, Voltaire, Brutus and the French Revolution

The French Revolution has often been perceived as the dawn of the modern era, the divide between the ancien régime and the contemporary world. It is an undeniably crucial event in...

Voltaire is still the most important representative of the Enlightenment in Europe. He was a firm critic of absolutism, feudalism and the Catholic Church. Throughhis extensive corr...

The Introduction outlines the aims of this VSI: it is an introduction to the making of Voltaire, an Enlightenment celebrity. It is also an examination of the way Voltaire spent his...

‘The life and the afterlife’ considers the challenges for Voltaire’s biographers. It is not easy to write a satisfactory account of his life: we know too much and too little. Anoth...

This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle,...

The philosopher Alain synthesized the French approach to Shakespeare when he announced: ‘If Hamlet fell down to Earth, naked, without its procession of admirers, the critics would ...

When in Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine of France in 1154 A.D., he became at once the reigning sovereign over a vast stretch of land extending across all of Englan...