Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of FreedomWith its tales of illegitimacy, prison, stardom, exile, love affairs, and tireless battles against his critics, priests and king, Roger Pearson's Voltaire Almighty brings the father of Enlightenment to vivid life. Voltaire Almighty provides a lively look at the life and thought of one of the major forces behind European Enlightenment. A rebel from start to finish (1694-1778), Voltaire was an ailing and unwanted bastard child who refused to die; and when he did consent to expire some eighty-four years later, he secured a Christian burial despite a bishop's ban. During much of his life Voltaire was the toast of society for his plays and verse, but his barbed wit and commitment to human reason got him into trouble. Jailed twice and eventually banished by the king, he was an outspoken critic of religious intolerance and persecution. His personal life was as colorful as his intellectual life. Of independent means and mind, Voltaire never married, but he had long-term affairs with two women: Emilie, who died after giving birth to the child of another lover, and his niece, Marie-Louise, with whom he spent the last twenty-five years of his life. The consummate outsider; a dissenter who craved acceptance while flamboyantly disdaining it; author of countless stories, poems, books, plays, treatises, and tracts as well as some twenty thousand letters to his friends: Voltaire lived a long, active life that makes for engaging and entertaining reading. |
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User Review - speaker43 - LibraryThingThis was a fun book to read. I wanted to learn about Voltaire, and this was a good biography. I haven't read any other biographies of Voltaire, so I can't compare it with all of the others. But it ... Read full review
Voltaire almighty: a life in pursuit of freedom
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictPearson (French, Oxford; ed. and trans., Candide and Other Stories ) has written a captivating and revealing book about one of the giants of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire (n Franois-Marie Arouet ... Read full review
Contents
Of Uncertain Birth 16941704 | 9 |
White Nights and Early Nights 17111718 | 32 |
Back to the Bastille 17181726 4 8 | 48 |
England Land of Libeny 17261728 | 69 |
From Bonanza to Bombshell 17281733 | 85 |
Sex in Blue Stockings _i7351735 | 109 |
and how two rmkolds turned a Mind | 127 |
Worms in the Apple 17361739 | 142 |
Hello and Goodbye to Berlin 17491753 2 13 | 215 |
l4 A Niece for a Wife 01 Househunting | 236 |
and roots our iryamy | 283 |
April Foolery 17681769 | 323 |
The Last Act 17761778 | 364 |
Out Like a Candle MarchMay 1778 | 381 |
and to tap tbzflamz bumfng | 395 |
cunnm CALL | 411 |
Berlin 01 Paris? 17391745 | 162 |
U The Way of the World 117451748 | 182 |
Death of a Lover 0481749 | 196 |
Stilt Bililepr | 437 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom |
| Author | Roger Pearson |
| Edition | illustrated, annotated |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2005 |
| ISBN | 1582346305, 9781582346304 |
| Length | 447 pages |
| Subjects | › Biography & Autobiography / Historical Biography & Autobiography / Literary History / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |