Recommendations from our site
“This book is a series of short squibs on different topics all, broadly speaking, concerning the Bible and the history of the church, and all designed to make you reflect on what pious Catholics thought were absolute certainties. There’s an absurdist side to Voltaire’s humour that is very modern and completely speaks to us.” Read more...
Nicholas Cronk, Literary Scholar
Commentary
“After all this time the book still has the power to make you gasp at its audacity…Voltaire was pushing 70 when he wrote it, but he wasn’t getting soft in his old age. Rather the contrary. He felt not only that time was running out, but that he could really let rip without too much fear of the consequences.”
“…I am quoting here from John Fletcher’s superb translation in the Oxford World Classics series. An important feature of this translation is that John Fletcher keeps the often conversational tone of Voltaire’s ‘philosophical’ style, and doesn’t try to normalise it. These shifts of linguistic register are key to the shock of Voltaire’s irony.”