VOLTAIRE IN EXILE: THE LAST YEARS, 1753-78

"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 twenty-five 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 finest 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 period in the life of one of the giant figures of the Enlightenment. By translating the rich correspondence between Voltaire and his family, members of the Court at Versailles and the French intellectual elite, Davidson allows us to discover Voltaire the artist, the campaigner, the aesthete, the lover and the humorist."--BOOK JACKET.