Voltaire Foundation Annual Report 2005-2007

In another successful year for the Foundation, a total of XX new titles were published (see Annexe). There has been some turnover in staff, but this has not detracted from a continuing high level of expertise. Tim Gardam, Principal of St. Anne’s College, replaced Sir Alan Budd as Chair of the Voltaire Foundation Fund Committee.

In addition to the income from the Besterman Bequest and that generated by the publishing operation (Voltaire Foundation Ltd), we have had significant success with our fundraising efforts, and appointed our first (part-time) Development Director. We now attract subsidies from the Centre national du Livre (Paris) for an increasing number of our series. The Domaine de Belesbat/Air Artisan Paris renewed their generous sponsorship of two volumes (€60,000) of the Complete works of Voltaire/Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, and one further volume received individual sponsorship. We were also successful in gaining additional British Academy funding for two major texts in the Complete works of Voltaire programme, and we obtained funding for the first time from the Union académique internationale (Brussels).

Six volumes of the Complete works of Voltaire were published during the academic year; this is the largest number of volumes produced in a twelve-month period since the edition was launched in 1968. Our aim is now to maintain this momentum to ensure completion of the edition by our target date of 2018. The Editorial Board met, as usual, in Paris in June; and Professor David Williams (University of Sheffield) was appointed Research Associate of the Voltaire Foundation, in recognition of his particular contribution to the progress of the edition. An important development this year was the inclusion within the Complete works of the Corpus des notes marginales de Voltaire: this critical edition of Voltaire’s marginalia, formerly published by Akademie Verlag in Berlin, ran aground in the mid 1990s, and negotiations have been successfully completed with the National Library of Russia, St Petersburg, for the Corpus des notes marginales de Voltaire to be published by the Voltaire Foundation, as an integral part of the Complete works. The publication of Voltaire’s marginal annotations of the books in his library has now been relaunched with Volume 6, containing the hitherto unpublished marginalia on authors from Nadal to Plato. An important innovation this year has been the reissuing of volumes of the edition which had gone out of print, and the technology of print-on-demand made possible the reprinting of three volumes: Volume 2 (La Henriade, ed. O. R. Taylor), Volume 7 (La Pucelle, ed. Jeroom Vercruysse), and Volume 59 (La Philosophie de l’histoire, ed. J. H. Brumfitt).

SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), under the general editorship of Jonathan Mallinson (Trinity College), continued to publish the best modern research, in both English and French, on all aspects of the (predominantly French) Enlightenment.   Among the twelve volumes appearing in this period were literary monographs, a critical edition of hitherto unpublished manuscripts, and studies in the history of the book and the history of ideas. Two specially commissioned collaborative volumes appeared, one Emilie Du Châtelet: rewriting Enlightenment philosophy and science, was published to coincide with the tercentenary of the birth of Mme Du Châtelet in 1706, the other The Eighteenth century now: boundaries and perspectives, a collection of essays on the present state and future direction of eighteenth-century studies, was commissioned to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the series SVEC, founded by Theodore Besterman in 1955. The series continued to be the preferred place of publication for both young and established scholars, and the list included four books based on doctoral theses (from England, France and North America), and extended essays on Voltaire by two of the foremost French specialists.

An important new edition was launched with the first volume of the Correspondance générale de La Beaumelle: this unpublished correspondence of a leading Huguenot figure is a major addition to our list of definitive editions of eighteenth-century correspondences, which we propose to publish electronically as well as on paper. The regular publication of our other collections has been maintained, and this period also saw the appearance of further volumes in the Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu and in the Correspondance de Bayle. The Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu were awarded the ‘Prix 2006’ of the Académie Montesquieu.

Electronic Enlightenment (EE) is a research project which aims to create a fully 

cross-searchable digital collection of eighteenth-century correspondences, in both French and English, in their best available critical editions. We are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their continuing support of this project: a further grant of $282,000 has allowed research on the prototype to continue during this period, with a view to creating a saleable product which might be distributed by OUP in 2007. A grant from the British Academy made jointly to the University of Exeter and to the Foundation is financing an electronic edition of the unpublished Correspondance de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, which will begin publication in 2007.

Professor Graham Gargett (University of Ulster, Coleraine) spent part of Hilary Term in Oxford as the VF Visiting Scholar. The Foundation continued to administer the Owen Taylor Fund which makes grants to young eighteenth-century scholars. Our annual postgraduate conference, which aims to bring together doctoral students in France, the UK and North America working broadly on the French eighteenth century, was organised this year by graduate students Ursula Haskins Gonthier and Alison Roberts; it was held at Lincoln College in April 2006, with the theme ‘L’opinion et les opinions au XVIIIe siècle’; the proceedings will be published in SVEC in 2007. The Foundation, in association with the Voltaire Society of America and the Société des études voltairiennes, sponsored a double panel on ‘Current Research on Voltaire’ at the 2006 meeting of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. In Hilary and Trinity Terms, the Foundation was again host to the weekly Enlightenment Workshop sessions organised by members of the Modern History Faculty; and with the Maison Française d’Oxford, the Foundation co-hosted a lecture by Professor Steve Kaplan (Cornell). The Foundation was represented, and its books displayed, at the annual meetings of the Société française d’étude du XVIIIe siècle in Paris in January, of the British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies in Oxford in January, and of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) in Montreal in March. The Foundation continued to serve as the secretariat of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS), which, as its name suggests, is the principal interdisciplinary forum for eighteenth-century research. Further information about the activities and publications of the Foundation can be found on our website: www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk.

 

ANNEXE

BOOKS PUBLISHED AUGUST 2006 – JULY 2007

 

(1) Œuvres complètes de Voltaire

18a Œuvres de 1738 (I)

ISBN 978 0 7294 0893 6

Vie de Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Rousseau • Edition critique par François Moureau

Les Originaux • Edition critique par Jacques Spica

De la gloire, ou entretien avec un Chinois • Critical edition by Basil Guy

Shorter verse of 1738 • Critical edition by Ralph A. Nablow

 

18b Œuvres de 1738-1740 (II)

ISBN 978 0 7294 0894 3

L’Envieux • Critical edition by Russell Goulbourne

Zulime, tragédie • Edition critique par Jacqueline Hellegouarc’h

Mémoire sur l’édition des œuvres de Monsieur de Voltaire, faite à Amsterdam chez Desbordes et Ledet, 1739 • Critical edition by Nicholas Cronk

Epître à un ministre d’Etat sur l’encouragement des arts • Critical edition by Russell Goulbourne

 

28a Œuvres de 1742-1745 (I)

ISBN 0 7294 0871 X

Thérèse (fragment) • Critical edition by Russell Goulbourne

A Monsieur *** sur le mémoire de Desfontaines • Edition critique par Olivier Ferret

La Princesse de Navarre, comédie-ballet • Critical edition by Russell Goulbourne

Le Temple de la gloire • Critical edition by Russell Goulbourne

Fragment sur la corruption du style • Critical edition by David Williams

Sur la police des spectacles • Critical edition by David Williams

Shorter verse of 1742-1745 • Critical edition by Ralph A. Nablow

 

32a Œuvres de 1750-1752 (I)

ISBN 0 7294 0842 6

Dialogue entre un plaideur et un avocat • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Dialogue entre Madame de Maintenon et Mademoiselle de Lenclos • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Dialogue entre un philosophe et un contrôleur-général des finances • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Dialogue entre un brahmane et un jésuite, sur la nécessité et l’enchaînement des choses • Critical edition by W. H. Barber and Robert L. Walters

Dialogue entre Marc-Aurèle et un récollet • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Lettre d’un Turc, sur les fakirs et sur son ami Bababec • Critical edition by Thomas Wynn

Extrait du décret de la sacrée congrégation de l’inquisition de Rome, à l’encontre d’un libelle intitulé: ‘Lettres sur le vingtième’ • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Remerciement sincère à un homme charitable • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

La Voix du sage et du peuple • Critical edition by David Williams

Résumé historique et critique de ce qu’on a écrit pour et contre l’authenticité du Testament politique • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Des titres • Critical edition by Ahmad Gunny and David Williams

Des cérémonies • Critical edition by Ahmad Gunny and David Williams

Pensées sur l’administration • Critical edition by Ahmad Gunny and David Williams

Lettre sur Mademoiselle de Lenclos • Critical edition by Mark Waddicor

Eloge historique de Madame la marquise Du Châtelet • Critical edition by William Barber

Shorter verse of 1750-1752 • Critical edition by Ralph A. Nablow

Texte attribué à Voltaire: Factum pour la nombreuse famille de Rapterre contre le nommé Giolot Ticalani • Présenté par Jeroom Vercruysse

 

32b Œuvres de 1750-1752 (II)

ISBN 978 0 7294 0843 1

Poème sur la loi naturelle • Critical edition by Haydn T. Mason and Thomas Wynn

Voltaire’s commentary on Frederick’s poem ‘L’Art de la guerre’ • Critical edition by Theodore Besterman

Défense de Milord Bolingbroke, par le docteur Good Natur’d Vellisher, chapelain du comte de Chesterfield • Edition critique par Roland Mortier

Mémoires sur La Beaumelle • Edition critique par Claude Lauriol

‘Extrait’ de la Bibliothèque raisonnée. Voltaire’s review of of the Œuvres de M. de Maupertuis• Critical edition by David Beeson

Appendice 1: Texte attribué à Voltaire: Le Tombeau de la Sorbonne • Edition critique par Olivier Ferret

Appendice 2: Texte attribué à Voltaire: La ‘Connaissance des beautés’ de Durand • Présenté par Nicholas Cronk

 

38 Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (II): A-Aristée

Sous la direction de Nicholas Cronk et Christiane Mervaud

ISBN 978 0 7294 0854 7

 

(2) SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century)

Le Théâtre de Lélio: étude du répertoire du Nouveau Théâtre Italien de 1716 à 1729

Ola Forsans

SVEC 2006:08, ISBN 0 7294 0882 5, 240 × 156mm, x.378 pages, £65 / 100 / $125

 

Diderot and European culture

Ed. Frédéric Ogée and Anthony Strugnell

SVEC 2006:09, ISBN 0 7294 0883 3, 240 × 156mm, xii.246 pages, £55 / 88 / $100

 

Voltaire et le ‘Grand Siècle’

Ed. Jean Dagen et Anne-Sophie Barrovecchio

SVEC 2006:10, ISBN 0 7294 0884 1, 240 × 156mm, xxii.441 pages, £70 / 110 / $130

Taxes, copperplates and propaganda: the Fermiers Généraux edition of La Fontaine’s Contes et nouvelles en vers of 1762

David Adams

SVEC 2006:11, ISBN 0 7294 0885 X, 240 × 156mm, xvi.428pp, £65 / 100 / $125

Qu’est-ce que les Lumières? • History of art • History of ideas

SVEC 2006:12, ISBN 0 7294 0886 8, 240 × 156mm, vi.400 pages, £70 / 110 / $130

 

Images du féminin dans les utopies françaises classiques

Marie-Françoise Bosquet

SVEC 2007:01, 978 0 7294 0 9025, i.451 pages, 240 × 156mm, £69 / 105/ $135

 

Sade’s theatre: pleasure, vision, masochism

Thomas Wynn

SVEC 2007:02, 978 0 7294 0903 2, ix.224 pages, 240 × 156mm, £55 / 88/ $105

 

La Fureur de nuire: échanges pamphlétaires entre philosophes et antiphilosophes (1750-1770)

Olivier Ferret

SVEC 2007:03, 978 0 7294 0891 2, xxi.487 pages, 16 ill., 240 × 156mm, £69 / 105/ $135

 

Nicolas François de Neufchâteau, Paméla, ou La Vertu récompensée 

Edition critique par Martial Poirson

SVEC 2007:04, 978 0 7294 0906 3, xiii.261 pages, 20 ill., 240 × 156mm, £60 / 95/ $115

 

Between state and market: printing and bookselling in eighteenth-century France

Thierry Rigogne

SVEC 2007:05, 978 0 7294 0907 0, xvii.314 pages 23 ill., 240 × 156mm, £65 / 100/ $125

 

Enlightenment and tradition Women’s studies  Montesquieu

SVEC 2007:06, 978 0 7294 0908 7, xi.316 pages 17 ill., 240 × 156mm, £69 / 105/ $135

 

Figures de l’histoire de France dans le théâtre au tournant des Lumières 

(1760-1830) 

Ed. Gérard Lahouati et Paul Mironneau

SVEC 2007:07, 978 0 7294 0909 4, xv, 427 pages 10 ill., 240 × 156mm, £65 €96 $138

 

(3) Other

Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu: Volume 16, Geographica. Extraits et notes de lectures I, ed. Catherine Volpilhac-Auger et al. ISBN 978-0-7294-0910-0, 2007, xlviii+450 pp., 9 ill.

£105 / €160 (hors taxe) / $205

 

Correspondance générale de La Beaumelle: Volume 1I (1747-1749), ed. Hubert Bost, Claude Lauriol et Hubert Angliviel de La Beaumelle ISBN 978 0-7294-0898-1 xxv.446 pp 10 ill. £95 / €145 / $201

 

Correspondance de Bayle: Volume 5 (1684), ed. Elisabeth Labrousse  and Antony McKenna and others août 1684 – fin juillet 1685, Lettres 309 – 450  ISBN 9780729408776 xxiii 538 pp 15 ill. £95 / €145 / $201

 

Correspondance de Mme de Graffigny X 26 avril 1749 – 2 juillet 1750 Ed. Marie-Thérèse Inguenaud and J. A. Dainard, Dorothy P. Arthur, M.-P. Ducretet-Powell, E. Showalter and D.W. Smith ISBN 978 0-7294-0806-X xxvii.638 pages £90 / €140 / $191

British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies: Volume 28, part 3; Volume 29, parts 1 and 2

 

 

 

 

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