Primary Literature

Because of Voltaire’s celebrity, efforts to collect and canonize his writings began immediately after his death, and still continue today. The result has been the production of three major collections of his writings including his vast correspondence, the last unfinished. Together these constitute the authoritative corpus of Voltaire’s written work.

• Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, edited by A. Beuchot. 72 vols. Paris: Lefevre, 1829–1840.
• Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, edited by L.E.D. Moland and G. Bengesco. 52 vols. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1877–1885.
• Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, edited by Theodore Besterman. 135 vols. (projected) Geneva, Banbury, and Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1968–.

Primary Literature in Translation

Collections of Writings

• The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version, William F. Fleming (ed. and tr.), 21 vols., New York: E.R. Du Mont, 1901. [Complete edition available at the Online Library of Liberty]
• The Portable Voltaire, Ben Ray Redman (ed.), New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
• Selected Works of Voltaire, Joseph McCabe (ed.), London: Watts, 2007.
• Shorter Writings of Voltaire, J.I. Rodale (ed.), New York: A.S. Barnes, 1960.
• Voltaire in his Letters, Being a Selection of his Correspondence, S.G. Tallentyre (tr.), Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2004.
• Voltaire on Religion: Selected Writings, Kenneth W. Applegate (ed.), New York: F. Ungar, 1974.
• Voltaire: Selected Writings, Christopher Thacker (ed.), London: Dent, 1995.
• Voltaire: Selections, Paul Edwards (ed.), New York: Macmillan, 1989.

Theater

• Translations of Voltaire’s major plays are found in: The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version, William F. Fleming (ed. and tr.), New York: E.R. Du Mont, 1901. [Complete edition available at the Online Library of Liberty] (Scholar)
• Seven Plays (Mérope (1737), Olympia (1761), Alzire (1734), Orestes (1749), Oedipus (1718), Zaire, Caesar), William Fleming (tr.), New York: Howard Fertig, 1988. (Scholar)

History

• The Age of Louis XIV (1733) and other Selected Writings, J.H. Brumfitt (ed.), New York: Twayne, 1963. (Scholar)
• The Age of Louis XIV (1733), Martyn P. Pollack (tr.), London and New York: Dutton, 1978. (Scholar)
• History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (1727), Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2002.
• History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (1727), Antonia White and Ragnhild Marie Hatton (eds.), New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1993. (Scholar)
• The Philosophy of History (1764), New York: The Philosophical Library, 1965.

Essays, Letters, and Stories

• The Complete Tales of Voltaire, William Walton (tr.), 3 vols., New York: Howard Fertig, 1990.
  • Vol. 1: The Huron (1771), The History of Jenni (1774), The One-eyed Street Porter, Cosi-sancta (1715), An Incident of Memory (1773), The Travels of Reason (1774), The Man with Forty Crowns (1768), Timon (1755), The King of Boutan (1761), and The City of Cashmere (1760). (Scholar)
  • Vol. 2: The Letters of Amabed (1769), The Blind Judges of Colors (1766), The Princess of Babylon (1768), The Ears of Lord Chesterfield and Chaplain Goudman (1775), Story of a Good Brahman (1759), An Indian Adventure (1764), and Zadig, or, Destiny (1757). (Scholar)
  • Vol. 3: Micromegas (1738), Candide, or Optimism (1758), The World as it Goes (1750), The White and the Black (1764), Jeannot and Colin (1764), The Travels of Scarmentado (1756), The White Bull (1772), Memnon (1750), Plato’s Dream (1737), Bababec and the Fakirs (1750), and The Two Consoled Ones (1756). (Scholar)
• The English Essays of 1727, David Williams and Richard Walker (eds.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996. (Scholar)
• Epistle of M. Voltaire to the King of Prussia (1738), Glasgow, 1967.
• The History of the Travels of Scarmentado (1756), Glasgow: The College Press, 1969. (Scholar)
• Micromégas and other Short Fictions (1738), Theo Cuffe and Haydn Mason (eds.), London and New York: Penguin Books, 2002. (Scholar)
• The Princess of Babylon (1768), London: Signet Books, 1969. (Scholar)
• The Virgin of Orleans, or Joan of Arc (1755), Howard Nelson (tr.), Denver: A. Swallow, 1965. (Scholar)
• Voltaire. Essay on Milton (1727), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954. (Scholar)
• Voltaire’s Romances, New York: P. Eckler, 1986. (Scholar)
• Zadig, or L’Ingénu (1757), London: Penguin Books, 1984. (Scholar)
• Zadig, or the Book of Fate (1757), New York: Garland, 1974.
• Zadig, or The Book of Fate an Oriental History (1757), Woodbridge, CT: Research Publications, 1982.

Politics

• The Calas Affair: A Treatise on Tolerance (1762), Brian Masters (ed.), London: The Folio Society, 1994. (Scholar)
• The Sermon of the Fifty (1759), J.A.R. Séguin (ed.), Jersey City, NJ: R. Paxton, 1963.
• A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays, Joseph McCabe (ed.), Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994.
• A Treatise on Tolerance and other Writings, edited by Brian Masters, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994
• Voltaire. Political Writings, edited by David Williams, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994

Editions of Major Individual Works

• The Elements of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy (1738; 2nd expanded edition, 1745)
  • Translated John Hanna. London: Cass, 1967. (Scholar)
  • Birmingham, AL: Gryphon Editions, 1991.
• Philosophical Dictionary (1752)
  • Edited by Theodore Besterman. London: Penguin Books, 2002. (Scholar)
  • Translated by Peter Gay. New York: Basic Books, 1962.
  • Philosophical Dictionary: A Compendium, Wade Baskin (ed.), New York: Philosophical Library, 1961.
  • Philosophical Dictionary: Selections, Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 1965.
  • Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary, Clarence L. Barnhart (ed.), New York: Carlton House, 1900. (Scholar)
• Philosophical Letters (Letters on the English Nation, Letters on England) (1734)
  • John Leigh and Prudence L. Steiner (ed.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2007. (Scholar)
  • Leonard Tancock (ed.), London and New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
  • Ernest Dilworth (ed.), Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003.
  • Nicholas Cronk (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
  • F.A. Taylor (ed.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946.
  • Harvard Classics, Vol. 34, Part 2. [Available online from Bartleby.com]
• Voltaire’s Letters on the Quakers (1727), Philadelphia: William H. Allen, 1953. (Scholar)
• Candide, or Optimism (1758). Hundreds of English editions of this text have been published, so this list is restricted to the most important scholarly editions published since 1960.
  • C.H.R. Niven (ed.), London: Longman, 1980.
  • Candide and other Writings, Haskell M. Block (ed.), New York: Modern Library, 1985.
  • Richard Aldington, Ernest Dilworth, and others (eds.), New York: Modern Library, 1992.
  • Shane Weller (ed.), New York: Dover, 1993.
  • Candide: A Dual Language Book, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1993.
  • Robert Martin Adams (ed.), New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
  • Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project, 1998. [Available online at Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project]
  • Daniel Gordon (ed.), Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999.
  • Candide and Related Texts, David Wooton (ed.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000.
  • Lowell Bair (ed.), New York: Bantam Books, 2003.
  • Candide & Zadig, Lester G. Crocker (ed.), New York: Pocket Books, 2005.
  • Raffael Burton (ed.), New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
  • Theo Cuffe (ed.), London and New York: Penguin Books, 2007.
  • Candide and other Stories, Roger Pearson (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories, Donald Frame (tr. and ed.), New York: Signet Classic, 2009.

Secondary Literature

The scholarly literature on Voltaire is vast, and growing larger every day. The summary here, therefore, will be largely restricted to scholarly books, with only a few articles of singular import listed. The Voltaire Foundation’s series Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century changed its name in 2013 to Oxford University Studies on Enlightenment. The original series published over 450 volumes, many related to Voltaire, and while the new title reflects a change toward a broader publishing agenda, it remains, along with Cahier Voltaire published by La Fondation Voltaire à Ferney, the best periodical source for new scholarship on Voltaire.

• Aldridge, Alfred Owen, 1975, Voltaire and the Century of Light, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Badinter, Elizabeth, 1983, Émilie, Émilie, l’ambition féminine au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Flammarion.
• –––, 1999–2002, Les Passions intellectuelles, 2 volumes, Paris: Fayard. (Scholar)
• Barber, W.H., 1955, Leibniz in France from Arnauld to Voltaire: A Study in French Reactions to Leibnizianism 1670–1760, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Scholar)
• Barrell, Rex A., 1988, Bolingbroke and France, Lanham, MD: University Press of America. (Scholar)
• Besterman, Theodore, 1969, Voltaire, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World. (Scholar)
• Bird, Stephen, 2000, Reinventing Voltaire: The Politics of Commemoration in Nineteenth-century France, Oxford: Oxford University Studies on Enlightenment. (Scholar)
• Brooks, Richard A., 1964, Voltaire and Leibniz, Geneva: Droz. (Scholar)
• Brown, Harcourt, 1947, Voltaire and the Royal Society of London, Toronto: University of Toronto Quarterly. (Scholar)
• Brumfitt, J.H., 1970, Voltaire: historian, London: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1973, The French Enlightenment, Cambridge: Schenkman Pub. Co. (Scholar)
• Brunel, Lucien, 1967, Les Philosophes et l’académie française au dix-huitième siècle, Genève: Slatkine Reprints. (Scholar)
• Brunet, Pierre, 1931, L’introduction des théories de Newton en France au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: A. Blanchard.
• Collins, J. Churton, 1908, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England, London: E. Nash. (Scholar)
• Conlon, Pierre M., 1961, Voltaire’s literary career from 1728 to 1750, Genève: Institut et Musée Voltaire. (Scholar)
• Cottret, Bernard, 1992, Bolingbroke: exil et écriture au siècle des Lumières, Paris: Klincksieck. (Scholar)
• Cronk, Nicolas, 2009, The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2014, Voltaire: a very short introduction, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Darnton, Robert, 1979, The Business of Enlightenment: The Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1982, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Scholar)
• Dickinson, H.T., 1970, Bolingbroke, London: Constable. (Scholar)
• Dieckmann, Herbert, 1943, Le Philosophe: Texts and Interpretations, (Washington University Studies, New Series, Language and Literature, no. 18), St. Louis: Washington University Press. (Scholar)
• Duchet, Michèle, 1971, Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, Paris: F. Maspero. (Scholar)
• Ehrman, Esther, 1986, Mme. du Châtelet: Scientist, Philosopher and Feminist of the Enlightenment, Leamington [Spa]: Berg. (Scholar)
• Gandt, François de, 2001, Cirey dans la vie intellectuelle: la réception de Newton en France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Gardiner Janik, Linda, 1982, “Searching for the Metaphysics of Science: The Structure and Composition of Mme. Du Châtelet’s Institutions de physiques, 1737–1740”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 201: 85–113. (Scholar)
• Gay, Peter, 1954, The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment, New York: Knopf. (Scholar)
• –––, 1959, Voltaire’s Politics: The Poet as Realist, New Haven: Yale University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1969, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (Volume 1: The Science of Freedom), New York: Knopf. (Scholar)
• –––, 1977, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (Volume 2: The Rise of Modern Paganism), New York: Knopf. (Scholar)
• Guerlac, Henry, 1981,Newton on the Continent, Ithaca. (Scholar)
• Gurrado, Antonio, 2013, Voltaire cattolico, Torino: Lindau. (Scholar)
• Hagengruber, Ruth (ed.), 2011, Emilie du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton, Dordrecht: Springer. (Scholar)
• Ḥadīd, Javādī, 2012, Voltaire et l’Islam, Ozoir la Ferriere : Albouraq. (Scholar)
• Hellman, Lilian, 1980, Dorothy Parker, John La Touche, Richard Wilbur, and Leonard Bernstein, 1956–1957, Candide, An Operetta in Two Acts, New York: Jaini Publications. (Scholar)
• Hutchison, Ross, 1991, Locke in France: 1688–1734, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Iltis, Carolyn, 1977, “Madame du Châtelet’s metaphysics and mechanics”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 8: 29–48. (Scholar)
• Israel, Jonathan, 2000, The Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2006, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2009, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2014, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Jacob, Margaret, 1981, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans, London: Cornerstone Book Publishers. (Scholar)
• James, E. D., 1978, “Voltaire on the Nature of the Soul”, French Studies, 32: 20–33. (Scholar)
• –––, 1980, “Voltaire and Malebranche: from Sensationalism to ‘tout en Dieu’”, Modern Language Review, 75: 282–90. (Scholar)
• –––, 1984, “Voltaire and the Ethics of Spinoza”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 228: 67–87. (Scholar)
• –––, 1987, “Voltaire on Free Will”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 249: 1–18. (Scholar)
• Kramnick, Isaac, 1968, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Scholar)
• Lanson, Gustave, 1894, Histoire de la littérature française, Paris: Hachette. (Scholar)
• –––, 1906, Voltaire, Paris: Hachette. (Scholar)
• Libby, Margaret Sherwood, 1935, The Attitude of Voltaire to Magic and the Sciences, New York: Columbia University Press, 1935. (Scholar)
• Lilti, Antoine, 2005, Le monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Fayard. (Scholar)
• Mason, Haydn Trevor, 1963, Pierre Bayle and Voltaire, London: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1975, Voltaire, New York: St. Martin’s. (Scholar)
• Masseau, Didier, 1994, L’Invention de l’intellectual dans l’Europe du XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Mattei, Silvia, 2010, Voltaire et les voyages de la raison, Paris: Harmattan. (Scholar)
• Maurois, André, 1935, Voltaire, Paris: Gallimard. (Scholar)
• Mauzi, Robert, 1960, L’idée du bonheur dans la litterature et la pensée francaises au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: A. Colin.
• McKenna, Antony, 1994, Écraser l’infame, 1759–1770, Voltaire en son temps (Volume 4), René Pomeau (ed.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
• McMahon, Darrin M., 2001, Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-enlightenment and the Making of Modernity, New York: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• McNutt, Jennifer Powell, 2013, Calvin meets Voltaire: the clergy of Geneva in the age of enlightenment, 1685–1798, Burlington: Ashgate. (Scholar)
• Melton, James Van Horn, 2001, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Méricam-Bourdet, Myrtille, 2012, Voltaire et l’écriture de l’histoire: un enjeu politique, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Mervaud, Christiane, 1991, De la cour au jardin, 1750–1759, Voltaire en son temps (Volume 3), René Pomeau (ed.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Mitchell, Harvey, 2104, Voltaire’s Jews and modern Jewish identity: rethinking the Enlightenment, London: Routledge. (Scholar)
• Morize, André, 1909, L’Apologie du luxe au XVIIIe Siècle: “Le Mondain” et ses Sources, Paris: H. Didier.
• Neiertz, Patrick, 2012, Voltaire et l’économie politique, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Northeast, Catherine M., 1991, The Parisian Jesuits and the Enlightenment, 1700–1762, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Orieux, Jean, 1966, Voltaire, ou la Royauté de l’esprit, Paris: Flammarion. (Scholar)
• Palmer, Robert R., 1939, Catholics and Unbelievers in 18^th Century France, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Pappas, John N., 1957, Berthier’s Journal de Trevoux and the Philosophes (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Volume 3), Geneva: Institut and Musée Voltaire. (Scholar)
• –––, 1962, Voltaire and d’Alembert, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (Scholar)
• Pearson, Roger, 1993, The Fables of Reason: A Study of Voltaire’s “Contes philosophiques”, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2005, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom, London: Bloomsbury Publishing. (Scholar)
• Perry, Norma, 1975, Sir Everard Fawkener, friend and correspondent of Voltaire, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Pettit, Alexander, 1997, Illusory Consensus: Bolingbroke and the Polemical Responses to Walpole, 1730–1737, Newark: University of Delaware Press. (Scholar)
• Pomeau, René, 1969, La réligion de Voltaire, Paris: Nizet. (Scholar)
• –––, 1985, D’Arouet à Voltaire, 1694–1734, Voltaire en son temps (Volume 1), René Pomeau (ed.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
• –––, 1994, On a voulu l’enterrer, 1770–1791, Voltaire en son temps (Volume 5), René Pomeau (ed.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Pomeau, René (ed)., 1963. Politique de Voltaire, Paris: A. Colin. (Scholar)
• –––, 1985–1994, Voltaire en son temps, 5 vols., Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Popkin, Richard Henry, 1979, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Proust, Jacques, 1962, Diderot et l’Encyclopédie, Paris: Slatkine. (Scholar)
• Rasmussen, Dennis Carl, 2014, The pragmatic enlightenment: recovering the liberalism of Hume, Smith, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Rousseau, André Michel, 1976, L’Angleterre et Voltaire (1718–1789), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
• Saigey, Émile, 1873, Les sciences au XVIIIe siècle: la physique de Voltaire, Paris: G. Baillière. (Scholar)
• Schlereth, Thomas J., 1977, The cosmopolitan ideal in Enlightenment thought, its form and function in the ideas of Franklin, Hume, and Voltaire, 1694–1790, South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. (Scholar)
• Shank, J.B., 2008, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Scholar)
• Sharpe, Matthew, 2015, “On a Neglected Argument in French Philosophy: Sceptical Humanism in Montaigne, Voltaire and Camus”, Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory, 16(1): 1–26. (Scholar)
• Spink, John Stephenson, 1960, French Free-thought from Gassendi to Voltaire, London: University of London, Athlone Press. (Scholar)
• Terrall, Mary, 2002, The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Scholar)
• Tlili, Mahbouba Saï, 2009, Voltaire et l’Islam Tunis: Arabesques. (Scholar)
• Torrey, Norman L., 1930, Voltaire and the English Deists, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2^nd edition, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1967. (Scholar)
• –––,1938, The Spirit of Voltaire, New York: Russell and Russell, 2^nd edition, 1968. (Scholar)
• Undank, Jack, 1989, “Portrait of the Philosopher as Tramp”, in A New History of French Literature, Dennis Hollier (ed.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 421–428. (Scholar)
• Vaillot, René, 1988, Avec madame Du Châtelet, 1734–1749, Voltaire en son temps (Volume 2), René Pomeau (ed.), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)
• Van Kley, Dale, 1975, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits in France, 1757–1767, New Haven: Yale University Press. (Scholar)
• Vercruysse, Jeroom, 1966, Voltaire et la Holland, Genève: Institut et Musée Voltaire. (Scholar)
• Vernière, Paul, 1954, Spinoza et la pensée française avant la Révolution, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. (Scholar)
• Wade, Ira Owen, 1938, The Clandestine Organization and Diffusion of Philosophic Ideas in France from 1700 to 1750, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1941, Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet: An Essay on the Intellectual Activity at Cirey, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1947, Studies on Voltaire with Some Unpublished Papers of Mme. du Châtelet, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1969, The Intellectual Devevelopment of Voltaire, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Wooton, David, 2022, “Voltaire on Liberty,” Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines, 28: 59–90. (Scholar)
• Zinsser, Judith, 2006, La Dame d’Esprit: A Biography of the Marquise du Châtelet, New York: Viking. (Scholar)
• Zinsser, Judith and Hayes, Julie (eds.), 2006, Emilie du Châtelet: Rewriting Enlightenment Philosophy and Science, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. (Scholar)