Voltaire Foundation, Oxford

22/08/2024

The Sainte Cène du patriarche (c.1772), painted by Genevan artist Jean Huber, and used as the background image on this very blog, is a well-known representation of Voltaire and several of his contemporaries, and has over the years been reproduced many times. It depicts an entirely fictional scene, bringing together a sub-set of the philosophes (among them D’Alembert, La Harpe, Grimm, Saint-Lambert, Diderot and Condorcet) in a space apparently representing the château at Ferney, which some of them never visited....

The Sainte Cène du patriarche (c.1772), painted by Genevan artist Jean Huber, and used as the background image on this very blog, is a well-known representation of Voltaire and several of his conte…

25/07/2024

Nicolas Grenier’s Voltaire à la plage: la liberté dans un transat is the latest in a collection of short books published by Dunod, which already includes treatments of Shakespeare, Churchill and Proust, among others. The series seems aimed at entertaining a summer holiday readership, a bit like those English novels mainly sold at airports, and the volumes all face the difficult test of making a serious topic attractive and accessible....

Nicolas Grenier’s Voltaire à la plage: la liberté dans un transat is the latest in a collection of short books published by Dunod, which already includes treatments of Shakespeare, Churchill and Pr…

11/07/2024

If the modern reader were asked to name a single work by Voltaire, they would probably name Candide. But for the eighteenth century, Voltaire was the author of the Henriade, an epic poem about the Wars of Religion that was designed to give France a sense of unified national identity. The poem was also intended to elevate its author to stand beside the likes of Vergil and Homer, and for a while, it succeeded....

If the modern reader were asked to name a single work by Voltaire, they would probably name Candide. But for the eighteenth century, Voltaire was the author of the Henriade, an epic poem about the …

13/06/2024

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquês de Pombal, with reconstruction plans for Lisbon, copy of a painting by Louis-Michel van Loo and Claude-Joseph Vernet, after 1767 (Museu de Lisboa). The Marquis of Pombal (1699–1782) is best known for his reconstruction of the city of Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755, the disastrous event which is said to have inspired Voltaire’s writing of…...

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquês de Pombal, with reconstruction plans for Lisbon, copy of a painting by Louis-Michel van Loo and Claude-Joseph Vernet, after 1767 (Museu de Lisboa). The Ma…

23/05/2024

Poésie fugitive – according to Diderot’s definition, light verse which escapes its author’s quill to circulate beyond its initial communicative context – was ubiquitous in eighteenth-century France. Italian, German, and English authors from Goethe to Samuel Johnson refer to poésie fugitive as a French phenomenon, which raises questions as to why the term was not easily adapted into domestic contexts in other nations, and prompts investigation into how this type of poetry was perceived and circulated in and out of eighteenth-century France....

Poésie fugitive – according to Diderot’s definition, light verse which escapes its author’s quill to circulate beyond its initial communicative context – was ubiquitous in eighteenth-century France…

16/05/2024

The video of our First Annual Lecture on Digital Enlightenment Studies, given by Professor Glenn Roe on 2 May on the topic The Poetics of Text Reuse: Digital Intertextuality in the Eighteenth-century Archive, is now available to watch on our YouTube channel:

First Annual Voltaire Foundation Lecture on Digital Enlightenment StudiesSpeaker: Professor Glenn Roe (Sorbonne University & University of Oxford)Enlightenme...

16/05/2024

🚨🚨🚨Hackathon!🚨🚨🚨
Come join us in Paris for our next Hackathon on Voltaire and the Press!

Organised by the ERC ModERN project, the VF, and in collaboration with the DataLab of the French National Library (BnF).

More info and how to register here:
https://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/call-for-participation-voltaire-and-the-press-hackathon/

16/05/2024

Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury holds, surprisingly, one of the finest collections of Gravelot’s work in the UK. Why this should be is a fascinating story. Gravelot trained in Paris and Rome, and he studied painting under the great Boucher. Nevertheless, he was considered a mediocre student with slim prospects. In 1732 the French engraver Claude Dubosc lured him to London. Dubosc was then working on the English edition of Bernard Picart’s…...

Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury holds, surprisingly, one of the finest collections of Gravelot’s work in the UK. Why this should be is a fascinating story. Gravelot trained in Paris and Rome, and h…

10/05/2024

The prestigious French agrégation for philosophy exam has chosen Montesquieu as its focal point for 2024-2025. To support scholars, select studies on Montesquieu from the Voltaire Foundation have now been made by Liverpool University Press until Summer 2025. Find out more about which content is included here: https://bit.ly/Montesquieu-OA

Read more about the significance of Montesquieu’s philosophy, with some works about his political thought now temporarily available , in this blog post by Nicolas Fréry: https://bit.ly/Montesquieu-Blog

09/05/2024

Portrait anonyme de Montesquieu (d’après une médaille sculptée par Jacques-Antoine Dassier). On sait que parmi les auteurs que l’histoire a retenus comme les « philosophes français des Lumières », le seul qui jouisse d’une présence majeure et indiscutée dans les programmes de philosophie en France est paradoxalement celui dont l’inscription au sein des Lumières est la plus problématique : Rousseau. Certes, l’...

Portrait anonyme de Montesquieu (d’après une médaille sculptée par Jacques-Antoine Dassier). On sait que parmi les auteurs que l’histoire a retenus comme les « philosophes français des Lumière…

02/05/2024

In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about Lespinasse’s last will and testament, her insistent request for D’Alembert to have her head opened soon after her death, her bequest to him of a chiffonnière with nine drawers because she had heard him say he loved drawers, and her instructions as to what he should do with the papers that he would find when he opened the drawers of the desk and large cupboard she also left him....

In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about Lespinasse’s last will and testament, her insistent request for D’Alembert to have her head opened soon after her death, her bequest to him of a chiffonnière w…

25/04/2024

Fig. 1. The envelope of Julie de Lespinasse’s last will and testament (Photo: Archives nationales, MC/RS//542, details). ‘Je veux que six heures apres ma mort, on me fasse ouvrir la tête’. That is the first instruction given by Julie de Lespinasse in her last will and testament, addressed to D’Alembert as her executor. The line comes as a bit of a surprise or, at least, it did to me....

Fig. 1. The envelope of Julie de Lespinasse’s last will and testament (Photo: Archives nationales, MC/RS//542, details). ‘Je veux que six heures apres ma mort, on me fasse ouvrir la tête’. That is …

25/04/2024

🚨🚨🚨Come work with us! 🚨🚨🚨

We seek a Research Assistant who will work on updating an existing legacy database and transforming it into a sustainable and functional open access resource as part of the ‘Voltaire Studio’.

More info and how to apply:

We seek a Research Assistant who will work on updating an existing legacy database and transforming it into a sustainable and functional open access resource as part of the ‘Voltaire Studio’.

11/04/2024

Dans les programmes de littérature française de l’agrégation, où le cloisonnement entre les siècles a force de loi, rares sont les passe-murailles. Ce privilège était même jusqu’alors l’apanage d’un seul auteur, Claudel, qui après avoir eu trois fois les honneurs du concours au titre de l’œuvre du XXe siècle…...

Portrait d’Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, baronne de Staël-Holstein par Marie-Éléonore Godefroid(© RMN-GP Château de Versailles / Franck Raux). Dans les programmes de littérature française de l’agrég…

14/03/2024

Besterman’s vision for Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century In a report written on 20 January 1950 to his newly formed ‘International Advisory Committee’, Theodore Besterman noted that his ‘search for Voltaire correspondence had brought to light other manuscript material’; he envisioned publishing ‘many by-products’ with the hope that his efforts on the correspondence would lead to ‘something bigger’. …...

Besterman’s vision for Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century In a report written on 20 January 1950 to his newly formed ‘International Advisory Committee’, Theodore Besterman not…

11/03/2024

Save the date for our postdoc Roman Kuhn's workshop 'Fugitive Poetry / poésie fugitive in 18th-century Europe: Genre, Media and Networks', 11-12 April.

More info:

St. Edmund Hall (Old Dining Hall), Queen’s Lane, Oxford Organisation: Roman Kuhn (Voltaire Foundation) A pdf of the programme can be found under this link. 13.30 Coffee & Welcome 13.45…

29/02/2024

For better and for worse, the theatre is a place of distraction. The rapturous reception to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at the Barbican in London during summer 2021 was no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that audiences wanted to think of something other than Covid. Less welcome kinds of distraction also lurk in the playhouse. It’s not just other spectators’ munching, sniffling, and shuffling that divert our attention from what’s happening on stage....

For better and for worse, the theatre is a place of distraction. The rapturous reception to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at the Barbican in London during summer 2021 was no doubt due, at least in pa…

15/02/2024

German and European cultural histories, 1760-1830: Between network and narrative, edited by Crystal Hall and Birgit Tautz, has recently been published in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series. This book features eleven essays, an introduction, and an epilogue and is accompanied by a unique digital gateway into the arguments and supporting evidence in the volume. The digital collaboration hub features multimedia exhibits and interactive visualisations (found at…...

German and European cultural histories, 1760-1830: Between network and narrative, edited by Crystal Hall and Birgit Tautz, has recently been published in the Oxford University Studies in the E…

08/02/2024

The masterly critical edition of the Correspondance complète de Rousseau in 52 volumes, edited and annotated by Ralph Leigh, was first published between 1965 and 1998, in Geneva and then in Oxford. Critics are unanimous in hailing this edition as a model of its kind. It is this monument that Liverpool University Press, in partnership with the Voltaire Foundation, that has been made available as an…...

The masterly critical edition of the Correspondance complète de Rousseau in 52 volumes, edited and annotated by Ralph Leigh, was first published between 1965 and 1998, in Geneva and …

01/02/2024

The Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive – ECPA – is a peer-reviewed, award-winning digital archive and research project devoted to the poetry of the long eighteenth century. ECPA is open access and has been online at since 2015. Its main objective is to develop into a lively, collaborative workspace in support of the teaching, study, and research of eighteenth-century poetry. To this end, it is committed to the creation of a digital archive of high-quality primary and secondary sources....

The Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive – ECPA – is a peer-reviewed, award-winning digital archive and research project devoted to the poetry of the long eighteenth century. ECPA is open access and h…

25/01/2024

Élie Bertand (1713–1797) entre science, religion, préceptorat et journalisme, sous la direction de Rossella Baldi avec la collaboration d’Alice Breathe et Valérie Kobi (Genève, Slatkine, 2023). Portrait d’Élie Bertrand, huile sur toile de Sigmund Barth, 1749 (photo Daniel et Suzanne Fibbi-Aeppli ; avec l’aimable autorisation du Musée d’Yverdon et région, MY/2.A.1 ; tous droits réservés). Dans sa collection « Travaux sur la Suisse des Lumières », la…...

Élie Bertand (1713–1797) entre science, religion, préceptorat et journalisme, sous la direction de Rossella Baldi avec la collaboration d’Alice Breathe et Valérie Kobi (Genève, Slatkine, 2023). Por…

18/01/2024

The Voltaire Foundation recently launched its new journal, Digital Enlightenment Studies. The following was originally published as the Editorial in issue 1. We are delighted to launch Digital Enlightenment Studies (DES), an open-access, international, peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to the application and exploration of digital methodologies and resources for the interdisciplinary field of 18th-century studies. We are very grateful to Dan Edelstein for penning the…...

The Voltaire Foundation recently launched its new journal, Digital Enlightenment Studies. The following was originally published as the Editorial in issue 1. We are delighted to launch Digital Enli…

17/01/2024

Come join us for our brand new Voltaire Foundation Lecture Series in Digital Scholarship 2024 - Digital Enlightenment Studies: Methods and Approaches!

The full programme can be found on our website: https://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/voltaire-foundation-lecture-series-in-digital-scholarship/

In collaboration with Digital Scholarship Oxford (https://digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/) and Linacre College, Oxford

Come join us for our brand new The programme can also be found under this link (pdf). 15 February 2024 Linacre College, Meeting Suite, 17:00–19:00 Tobias Hodel (University of Bern) Handwritten Text…

11/01/2024

A year ago we began 2023 with a particular treat, a selection and study of verse given as New Year’s gifts, in some cases accompanied by sweets. Voltaire’s correspondence allows an occasional glimpse into how he approached New Year’s gifts, or ‘étrennes’, as they are referred to in French. The first recorded letter, supposedly by the ten-year-old Voltaire, sending New Year’s greetings (D1), is almost certainly a forgery, but there are several genuine ones – and they are not always as straightforward as we might imagine....

A year ago we began 2023 with a particular treat, a selection and study of verse given as New Year’s gifts, in some cases accompanied by sweets. Voltaire’s correspondence allows an occasional glimp…

21/12/2023

Charlotte White spent six weeks at the Voltaire Foundation this past summer thanks to the UNIQ+ programme and is now working towards an MA in Medical History and Humanities at the University of York. Creating an accessible online resource that explores the life and works of Voltaire is a daunting task, considering his seemingly endless list of publications and correspondence, and the generations of extensive scholarship attempting to make sense of it....

Charlotte White spent six weeks at the Voltaire Foundation this past summer thanks to the UNIQ+ programme and is now working towards an MA in Medical History and Humanities at the Univers…

07/12/2023

Reading It Wrong: An Alternative History of Early Eighteenth-Century Literature (Princeton University Press, 2023) Abigail Williams, Professor of English at the University of Oxford, is the editor of Jonathan Swift’s Journal to Stella in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift (2013) and the author of two distinguished monographs: The Social Life of Books: Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home…...

Reading It Wrong: An Alternative History of Early Eighteenth-Century Literature (Princeton University Press, 2023) Abigail Williams, Professor of English at the University of Oxford, is the editor …

04/12/2023

Call for Applications:

Turin Humanities Programme 2024-2026, “Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and the New World: Debates in the Early Modern Period”

Two-year postdoc positions!

More information on our website:

TURIN HUMANITIES PROGRAMME 4th CALL FOR APPLICATIONS – 2023 2024-2026 RESEARCH CYCLE “Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and the New World: Debates in the Early Modern Period” Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e…

23/11/2023

Charlotte White spent six weeks at the Voltaire Foundation this past summer thanks to the UNIQ+ programme and is now working towards an MA in Medical History and Humanities at the University of York. Studying a figure who has left behind a comprehensive correspondence provides opportunities to examine their identity from a more personal angle. For every event or publication, correspondence may add context to their actions, giving insight into how they perceived themselves or wished to be perceived by others....

Charlotte White spent six weeks at the Voltaire Foundation this past summer thanks to the UNIQ+ programme and is now working towards an MA in Medical History and Humanities at the University of Yor…

16/11/2023

This post originally appeared on The Tribune, published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University, on 24 October 2023. The Jacqueline Lambert-David collection of Voltaire manuscripts joins the J. Patrick Lee Voltaire collection at McGill, making the McGill Library one of the world’s major centres for the study of Voltaire. Elegant script, frayed edges, the occasional hole, and sketches of the man himself....

This post originally appeared on The Tribune, published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University, on 24 October 2023. The Jacqueline Lambert-David collection of Voltaire manuscripts joins…

09/11/2023

The Letters of the Duchesse d’Elbeuf: hostile witness to the French Revolution by Colin Jones, Simon Macdonald, and Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley has recently published in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series. This book features previously unpublished letters written by the duchesse d’Elbeuf which offer a vivid and exciting hostile account of the French Revolution and the Terror. In this blog post, we are introduced to the duchesse d’Elbeuf, the work of bringing together these new sources, and this latest publication in the series....

The Letters of the Duchesse d’Elbeuf: hostile witness to the French Revolution by Colin Jones, Simon Macdonald, and Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley has recently published in the Oxford University Studies in…