The Précis du siècle de Louis XV is in many ways the most fascinating of his historical writings, and one of the least known. In it, we see him combining his techniques as a historian with those of the contemporary eyewitness – the ‘on dit’ of the earlier histories becomes ‘Je le sais, j’y étais’.
Précis du siècle de Louis XV (III)
Histoire de la guerre de 1741
Œuvres complètes de Voltaire
Vol. No.
Vol. No.:
29C
Volume editor(s)
Volume editor(s):
Janet Godden, James Hanrahan
Publication Date
Publication Date:
2020
ISBN
ISBN:
978-0-7294-1226-1
Pages
Pages:
542
Price Sterling (£):
125
About the Book
About the Book:
The Précis du siècle de Louis XV is Voltaire’s vivid and engaging account of his own era. This third and final volume contains the full text of the Histoire de la guerre de 1741, a detailed account of the war of Austrian succession from the French perspective and written by Voltaire in his capacity of royal historiographer. The work was later partially subsumed into the Précis itself, and has rarely been edited as a separate text until now. Editorial notes help to place this work in the context of the later Précis and explain how Voltaire refined his text and altered his perspective. It provides an invaluable insight into the evolution of the text into its final form, and sheds light on Voltaire’s working methods and creative process.
Table of Contents
Histoire de la guerre de 1741
Appendix 5
General Index
Reviews
Reviews:
John R. Iverson
This edition should make it possible to study these works in new ways and will substantially expand our understanding of Voltaire’s work as an historian. Bravo!
Also Of Interest
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There are many reasons why Voltaire’s ‘Précis du siècle de Louis XV’ deserves our attention.
The eleventh of May 2015 is the 270th anniversary of the battle of Fontenoy, a great French victory in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748).
Voltaire’s historical writings form a significant part of his output, including works on Louis XIV, Louis XV, Charles XII, Peter the Great, the Holy Roman Empire, and even a pioneering universal history.
The work was never published by Voltaire, so what went wrong?
Every project in the Complete Works of Voltaire corpus seems to have its own special features that make it not quite fit into the mould of what has gone before.