This essential collection from the genius Voltaire includes his masterpiece and best-known work Candide, as well as his novel Zadig and fourteen short stories: "Micromegas," "The World as It Is," "Memnon," "Bababec and the Fakirs," "History of Scarmentado's Travels," "Plato's Dream," "Account of the Sickness, Confession, Death, and Apparition of the Jesuit Berthier," "Story of a Good Brahman," "Jeannot and Colin," "An Indian Adventure," "Ingenuous," "The One-Eyed Porter," "Memory's Adventure," "Count Chesterfield's Ears," and "Chaplain Goudman."
【作者简介】
A leading freethinker of his time and an opponent of political and religious oppression, Voltaire was instrumental in popularizing serious philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas that were frequently derived from liberal thinkers in England, where he lived for two years after his imprisonment in the Bastille. Voltaire's writings are wide ranging: He wrote plays in the neoclassic style, such as Oedipus (1718), philosophical essays in a popular vein like Letters on England (1734), which has been referred to as the first bomb hurled against the Ancien Regime; and the Philosophical Dictionary (1764), a catalog of polemical ideas on a large variety of subjects, particularly religion and philosophy. Voltaire was one of the most prolific letter writers in the entire history of literature, and his correspondence has been published in a French edition of 107 volumes. For the twentieth-century reader, Voltaire is best known for his philosophical tale Candide (1759), a masterpiece of satire that is both an attack on the philosophy of metaphysical optimism elaborated earlier in the century by the German philosopher Leibniz and a compendium of the abuses of the Ancien Regime as the author ponders the general problem of evil. Voltaire's unflinching belief in human reason and his easy handling of the language of Enlightenment wit and philosophy led the critic Roland Barthes to dub him "the last happy writer.
Thaisa Frank, author of three books of short fiction and a forthcoming novel, is a two-time PEN award winner, and contributing editor to "The San Francisco Review," She has taught at San Francisco State, University of California at Berkeley, and currently teaches at the University of San Francisco.
Dorothy Wall, poet and writing consultant, is also the author of numerous reviews and articles. She gives writing workshops and seminars, and has taught at San Francisco State University, Napa Valley College, and University of California at Berkeley, Extension. They both live in Oakland, California.
【目录】
INTRODUCTION
Candide [I759]
Zadig [1747]
Micromegas [1752]
The World as It Is [1748]
Memnon [1749]
Bababec and the Fakirs [1750]
History of Scarmentado's Travels [1756]
Plato's Dream[1756]
Account of the Sickness, Confession, Death and Apparition of theJesuit Berthier [1759]
Story of a Good Brahman [.1761]
Jeannot and Colin [1764]
An Indian Adventure [1766]
Ingenuous [1767]
The One-Eyed Porter [1774]
Memory's Adventure [1775]
Count Chesterfield's Ears and Chaplain Goudman [1775]
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