Product Description

In 1753, Voltaire – playwright, poet, philosopher, and one of the most fêted figures in Europe – was forced into exile by King Louis XV, where he would remain for the last 25 years of his life. These years heralded a startling new beginning for this remarkable character. Voltaire carved out a new and vibrant world in isolation, becoming a successful entrepreneur, writing his masterpiece Candide, and lavishing upon those around him the finer things in life. And it was as a figure cast out by the establishment that Voltaire began to develop his astonishingly modern ideas of human rights and social equality, borne out in his campaigns against a series of miscarriages of justice.

In Voltaire In Exile, Ian Davidson has recreated this brilliant period in the life of one of the giant figures of the Enlightenment. And by painstakingly translating the rich correspondence between Voltaire and his family, members of the Court at Versailles and the French intellectual élite, Davidson allows us to discover Voltaire the artist, the campaigner, the aesthete, the lover, the humorist. The result is a wonderfully vivid portrait of this extraordinarily funny, iconoclastic, complex and above all ferociously intelligent individual, described by Diderot as ‘the unique man of the century’.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148408 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Simon Jenkins
'Ian Davidson superbly captures Voltaire's exile and its creative impact on Voltaire's mind and work'.

Synopsis
In 1753, Voltaire - playwright, poet, philosopher, and one of the most feted figures in Europe - was forced into exile by King Louis XV, where he would remain for the last 25 years of his life. This period heralded a startling new beginning for this remarkable character during which Voltaire became a successful entrepreneur and wrote his masterpiece Candide. Cast out by the establishment, he also developed astonishingly modern ideas about human rights, borne out in his campaigns against a series of miscarriages of justice. Ian Davidson has drawn on the rich correspondence between Voltaire and his family, members of the Court at Versailles and the French intellectual elite, to paint a wonderful portrait of the man declared by Diderot to be 'the unique man of the century'.

About the Author
Ian Davidson graduated in Classics and English from Cambridge and joined the Financial Times in 1960. Reporting on European and international news, he was Brussels and Paris correspondent in the 1960s, and again Paris correspondent in the late 1980s, and the main Foreign Affairs columnist for the FT during much of his career. He is also the author of The Gold War (with Gordon Weil) and Britain and the Making of Europe.

Customer Reviews

A must for all students of French literature
This is an engrossing tale of the life of one of the greats of French literature. It's beautifully written and brings the man and his epoch truly alive. I wish I'd had it to hand when I was trying to study Voltaire at university.

Voltaire in Exile - an excellent read
If you have read Voltaire's Candide, or his Letters Concerning an English nation, then you must read this book. Also, if you have been to Geneva, then it really puts this part of the world into context.
The style of writing is light with each chapter leaving you with a suspense (unlike most history/auto biography type books that mundanely list dates and facts).
Also, you'll be intrigued on just how powerful a role religion played during the 18th century. Some of the trials and executions are written out in quite explicit detail.
The author goes to some lengths to base his work on Voltaire's numerous letters, but without boring the reader in any way.
In addition, you'll learn a lot about Geneva, and its role as a Republic during this period.
Highly recommended.

How Voltaire became good
An excellent book; it is necessary reading for anyone
who thought they knew something about Voltaire, given
the common misunderstanding and ignorance about the
journey that Voltaire made in political thought and
civil-rights campaigning - as well as commerce -
during an incredibly productive time at the end of his
life. (The title refers to the fact that this period
was spent mostly near Geneva, for safety from the
french king.)

The work is scrupulously detailed about Voltaire's life (being largely based on his some 15,000 letters), while remaining clear and gently passionate, and without losing any sense of the rhythm of Voltaire's journey, but the author does not ornament Voltaire, and he does not need to: the story, and the narrative therefrom, are fascinating, and of key importance not just for Voltaire, but also the history of freedom in Europe.