A bibliography of all Bayle’s primary literature and most secondary literature up to 2020 is contained in Mori 1999 [2020].

A. Primary Literature

A.1 French

• Bayle, Pierre, 1697, Dictionaire historique et critique, par Monsieur Bayle, two volumes, Rotterdam: R. Leers.

  [First edition of Bayle’s Dictionary.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1702, Dictionaire historique et critique, par Monsieur Bayle, seconde édition, revue, corrigée et augmentée par l’auteur, three volumes, Rotterdam: R. Leers.

  [Second edition of the Dictionary, the last that Bayle lived to see published.]

  (Scholar)
• [Dictionary] –––, 1740, Dictionaire historique et critique, par Mr. Pierre Bayle, Cinquième édition, four volumes, Amsterdam: P. Brunel et al.

  [The fifth edition of Bayle’s Dictionary is the one most often cited by Bayle scholars on account of its reliability. It includes revisions and additions that Bayle made before his death that were not included in the second edition.]

  (Scholar)
• [OD] –––, Oeuvres diverses, nine volumes, edited by Elisabeth Labrousse, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1964–1990.

  [The first four volumes consist of all of Bayle’s major works, besides the Dictionary. The next five volumes include mainly works by Bayle’s contemporaries that provide helpful context for reading Bayle.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, Fifteen volumes, edited by Élisabeth Labrousse, Antony McKenna, et al., Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1999–2017.

  [The most complete active and passive correspondence of Bayle, along with helpful notes.]

• –––, Bayle Corpus–Oeuvres completes, edited by Antony McKenna and Gianluca Mori, Classiques Garnier Numérique, 2012.

  [A digital, searchable copy of the Oeuvres diverses, Dictionaire, and other supplemental works by Bayle.]

A.2 English Translation

• Bayle, Pierre, 1734 (2^nd ed.), The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr Peter Bayle, P. Desmaizeaux (trans.), London: Knapton et al..

  [A reliable and complete translation of Bayle’s magnum opus, reprinted in 1984 from New York: Garland Publishing.]

• –––, 1991, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, Richard H. Popkin (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett.

  [A useful translation of some of the philosophically most important material from the Dictionary.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2000, Bayle: Political Writings, Sally L. Jenkinson (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139163866

  [A selection of articles from the Dictionary that portrays Bayle as primarily a political thinker.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2000, Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet, Robert Bartlett (trans.), Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

  [The first English translation of the Pensées diverses since 1708. Includes a helpful introduction and supplementary notes.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1708 [2000], A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23, “Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full”, reprinted and introduced by John Kilcullen and Chandran Kukathas, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. [Bayle 1708 available online]

  [A quaint but reliable and unabridged translation of the Commentaire Philosophique. The text is from the 1708 London edition whose translator is unknown.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2014, “Pierre Bayle’s The Condition of Wholly Catholic France Under the Reign of Louis the Great (1686)”, translated and introduced by Charlotte Stanley and John Christian Laursen (trans.), History of European Ideas, 40(3): 312–359. doi:10.1080/01916599.2013.806706

  [A contemporary English translation of Bayle’s most passionate political work, with a very helpful historical Introduction.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2016, Dialogues of Maximus and Themistius, translated, edited, and introduced by Michael W. Hickson, (Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, 256/18), Leiden/Boston: Brill.

  [The first English translation of Bayle’s last work, Entretiens de Maxime et de Thémiste (posthumous, 1707), which was Bayle’s final word on skepticism and the problem of evil.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “Pierre Bayle’s Reply of a New Convert (1689)”, translated, edited, and with an Introduction by John Christian Laursen, History of European Ideas, 43(8): 857–883. doi:10.1080/01916599.2016.1266013

  [The first English translation of Bayle’s passionate critique of Protestants, with a historical and critical Introduction from a top historian of Bayle’s political thought.]

  (Scholar)

B. Secondary Literature

• Bost, Hubert, 2006, Pierre Bayle, Paris: Fayard.

  [An award-winning intellectual biography of Bayle that provides a useful introduction both to Bayle and to his major philosophical works.]

  (Scholar)
• Dibon, Paul (ed.), 1959, Pierre Bayle: Le philosophe de Rotterdam, Amsterdam: Elsevier.

  [The origin of modern Bayle scholarship that re-established the importance of reading Bayle in the context of French Protestantism.]

  (Scholar)
• García-Alonso, Marta, 2017, “Bayle’s Political Doctrine: A Proposal to Articulate Tolerance and Sovereignty”, History of European Ideas, 43(4): 331–344. doi:10.1080/01916599.2016.1203593

  [Establishes the importance of Bayle’s theory of sovereignty for understanding his theory of toleration.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2019, “Tolerance and Religious Pluralism in Bayle”, History of European Ideas, 45(6): 803–816. doi:10.1080/01916599.2019.1616312

  [Distinguishes Bayle’s theory of toleration from his theory of freedom of conscience.]

  (Scholar)
• Hickson, Michael W., 2013, “Theodicy and Toleration in Bayle’s Dictionary”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 51(1): 49–73. doi:10.1353/hph.2013.0011

  [Argues that Bayle’s early works on toleration provide the foundation for his later works on the problem of evil.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2018, “Pierre Bayle and the Secularization of Conscience”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 79(2): 199–220. doi:10.1353/jhi.2018.0013

  [Traces the gradual separation of Bayle’s conception of conscience from all religious doctrines.]

  (Scholar)
• Hume, David, 2007, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and Other Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Irwin, Kristen, 2013, “Bayle on the (Ir)Rationality of Religious Belief”, Philosophy Compass, 8(6): 560–569. doi:10.1111/phc3.12044

  [Survey of opposing interpretations of Bayle on faith and reason.]

  (Scholar)
• Kilcullen, John, 1988, Sincerity and Truth: Essays on Arnauld, Bayle, and Toleration, Oxford: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198266914.001.0001

  [Includes a careful recapitulation and analysis of Bayle’s argument for toleration.]

  (Scholar)
• Labrousse, Elisabeth, 1963 [1985], Pierre Bayle, tome I: Du pay de foix à la cite d’Erasme, second edition, (International Archives of the History of Ideas 1), Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff.

  [The classic biography of Bayle, first published in 1963, by the most important Bayle scholar of all time.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1964, Pierre Bayle, tome II: Hétédoxie et rigorisme, (International Archives of the History of Ideas 6), La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff.

  [An extensive and thematic analysis of Bayle’s philosophical works. The two volumes of Labrousse’s Pierre Bayle are essential reading for any serious Bayle scholar.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 1983, Bayle, Denys Potts (trans.), (Past Masters), Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

  [An excellent introduction to the life of Bayle, his religious, political, and philosophical contexts, and the main philosophical theses that he supported and refuted.]

  (Scholar)
• Laursen, John Christian, 2011, “Baylean Liberalism: Tolerance Requires Nontolerance”, in Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration Before the Enlightenment, Cary J. Nederman and John Christian Laursen (eds), Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 197–215.

  [An exposition of the necessary role that intolerance plays in Baylean toleration.]

  (Scholar)
• Leduc, Christian, Paul Rateau, and Jean-Luc Solère (eds.), 2015, Leibniz et Bayle: Confrontation et Dialogue, (Philosophie 43), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

  [A collection of essays dedicated entirely to Bayle and Leibniz on a wide range of philosophical issues.]

  (Scholar)
• Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 1710, Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal (Theodicy), Amsterdam: I. Troyel. Translated as Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, Ausin Farrar (ed.), E. M. Huggard (trans.), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952. (Scholar)
• Lennon, Thomas M., 1999, Reading Bayle, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

  [A book-length treatment of the “Bayle enigma” that resolves the interpretive difficulties surrounding Bayle by reading him as an Academic skeptic.]

  (Scholar)
• Maia Neto, Jose Raimundo, 1997, “Academic Skepticism in Early Modern Philosophy”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 58(2): 199–220. doi:10.1353/jhi.1997.0018 (Scholar)
• –––, 1999, “Bayle’s Academic Skepticism”, in Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in his Honour, edited by James E. Force and David S. Katz, Leiden: Brill, 263–76.

  [The pioneering paper on Academic skepticism, as distinct from Pyrrhonism, in the early modern period; and the paper that applies the distinction to Bayle.]

  (Scholar)
• Marx, Karl, 1845 [1956], Die Heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik, Frankfurt am Main. Translated as The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism, Richard Dixon (trans.), Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1956. (Scholar)
• McKenna, Antony, 2015, Études sur Pierre Bayle, Paris: Honoré Champion.

  [A collection of essays by a leading Bayle scholar that offers a Rationalist, anti-skeptical interpretation of Bayle’s thought. ]

  (Scholar)
• Mori, Gianluca, 1999 [2020], Bayle philosophe, Paris: Honoré Champion. Nouvelle édition, 2020.

  [Second edition of the 1999 work that has been at the center of Bayle scholarship for two decades. Mori argues for the controversial thesis that “all the roads of Bayle’s philosophical reflection lead to atheism”.]

  (Scholar)
• Paganini, Gianni, 1980, Analisi della fede e critica della ragione nella filosofia di Pierre Bayle Florence: La Nuova Italia.

  [By a leading Italian historian of early modern philosophy.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2008, Skepsis: Le Débat des Modernes sur le Scepticisme, Paris: J. Vrin.

  [A book awarded the Prix La Bruyère, the last chapter of which offers a thorough and rigorous analysis of Bayle’s skepticism viz-a-viz Cartesian philosophy.]

  (Scholar)
• Popkin, Richard H., 2003, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. (Earlier editions were entitled The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, 1960, and The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, 1979.)

  [The last edition of this pioneering work concludes with a chapter on Bayle in the context of the early modern revival of Pyrrhonian skepticism.]

  (Scholar)
• Rétat, Pierre, 1971, Le Dictionnaire de Bayle et la lutte philosophique au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres”.

  [The classic history of the legacy of Bayle’s Dictionary in the Enlightenment.]

  (Scholar)
• Rex, Walter, 1965, Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

  [Places Bayle’s Various Thoughts on the Comet (1683) and Philosophical Commentary (1686–1688) in the context of the Protestant-Catholic polemics of the seventeenth century.]

  (Scholar)
• Ryan, Todd, 2009, Pierre Bayle’s Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy, (Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy 11), New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203876923

  [A careful analysis of Bayle’s critiques of Locke, Leibniz, and Spinoza, which establishes Bayle’s commitment to the metaphysics of Descartes.]

  (Scholar)
• Solère, Jean-Luc, 2016, “The Coherence of Bayle’s Theory of Toleration”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 54(1): 21–46. doi:10.1353/hph.2016.0019

  [The most rigorous presentation and defence of Bayle’s argument for toleration. This article won the prize for best article in JHP in 2016, and was chosen as one of the top ten articles published in all of Philosophy in 2016 by The Philosopher’s Annual.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “Bayle and Panpsychism”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 99(1): 64–101. doi:10.1515/agph-2017-0003

  [A careful analysis of Bayle’s view of the philosophical prospects of materialism. The question is important for understanding Bayle’s late attitude toward atheism.]

  (Scholar)
• van der Lugt, Mara, 2016, Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, (Oxford Historical Monographs), Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769262.001.0001

  [A beautifully written, accessible introduction to the logical structure and historical context of Bayle’s best-known work, the Dictionary.]

  (Scholar)
• –––, 2021, Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  [A history of philosophical pessimism with a prominent role played by Bayle.]

  (Scholar)
• van Lieshout, H.H.M., 2001, The Making of Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique with a CD-ROM containing the Dictionnaire’s Library and References between Articles, Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press.

  [A fascinating account of the process of researching, composing, and publishing the Dictionary.]

  (Scholar)
• Whelan, Ruth, 1989, The Anatomy of Superstition: A Study of the historical theory and practice of Pierre Bayle, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

  [A thoroughly scholarly and accessible account of Bayle from as important a perspective as any: as an historian.]

  (Scholar)