Questions sur l’Encyclopédie
Sous la direction de Christiane Mervaud et Nicholas Cronk
OCV Volumes 37-43
(Forthcoming 2007-2013)
The Questions sur l’Encyclopédie stands as Voltaire’s longest work, and yet it is one of his least known.
In this complete critical edition, scholars explore fully for the first time the relationship between the Questions and its named object of enquiry – Diderot and D'Alembert’s Encyclopédie. They also assess the complex techniques by which Voltaire fashions new material through extensive copying and borrowing from his earlier publications.
The work as a whole, written and revised principally between 1770 and 1774, is a compendium of Voltaire’s views on a broad range of subjects including religion, history, art and literature. It varies greatly in style and tone – from joking asides and fleeting observations to long and complex disquisitions. It casts new light on familiar themes – justice, humanity and tolerance – and explores many new ones, constituting finally, in Voltaire’s own words, ‘un livre moral, fait en forme de dictionnaire’.
The Voltaire Foundation’s new edition of the Questions in eight volumes is the first authentic edition of this work to appear in over two centuries. One volume is published each year, starting with Voltaire’s text (volumes II-VIII) and finishing in 2014 with the General Introduction (volume I).
‘Questions sur l’Encyclopédie was a real tour de force: some 440 articles on diverse subjects which amused and fascinated the septuagenarian Voltaire. After having nearly disappeared, Questions is surfacing again today in all its originality and irreverent splendour, thanks to the work of an international team of Voltaire specialists.’
Professor Robert Darnton, Harvard University