|
Loading... Letters on Englandby Voltaire
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  Marcos_Augusto | Aug 28, 2021 |  I was completely surprised at how great this was. I haven't read Candide in 25 or more years and had forgotten how well Voltaire wrote. Would be 5 stars but that last letter, yeesh, complete slog. (  ) encephalical | Mar 21, 2021 | It's somewhat interesting to see Voltaire's views of contemporary developments in England. The letters on the Quakers and on Newton were my favorite. The Quakers had a culture very different from that of France, and Newton's Principia was changing how people thought about the world at the time of Voltaire's writing. Oddly, it seems that Voltaire originally penned his letters in English before translating them into the French that I managed to get a copy of. I'm curious how Voltaire wrote in English. (  ) EthanRogers | Jul 12, 2019 | This piqued my interest in Voltaire's non-fiction writing. Previously, I had only read Candide. From this point forward, I plan to explore more of his writings-- he is a dutiful and fulfilling writer. A commendable effort. Good show. ( ) DanielSTJ | Dec 17, 2018 | Some of the letters are interesting and others are missable (generally the former are those with fewer large quotes and the latter with more). I could have done with far less concern about religion and theatre and more about about almost any other topic. ( ) thsutton | May 18, 2018 | no reviews | add a review
Is contained inThe Harvard Classics 50 Volume Set by Charles William Eliot (indirect) Harvard Classics Complete Set w/ Lectures and Guide [52 Volumes] by Charles William Eliot (indirect) Harvard Classics Five Foot Shelf of Books & Shelf of Fiction 71 Volumes including Lecture Series by Charles William Eliot (indirect) The Five-Foot Shelf of Books, Volume 34 by Charles William Eliot (indirect) Inspired
Inspired by Voltaire's two-year stay in England (1726-8), this is one of the key works of the Enlightment. Exactly contemporary with Gulliver's Travels and The Beggar's Opera, Voltaire's controversial pronouncements on politics, philosophy, religion, and literature have place the Lettersamong the great Augustan satires.Voltaire wrote most of the book in English, in which he was fluent and witty, and it fast became a bestseller in Britain. He re-wrote it in French as the Lettres philosophiques, and current editions in English translate his French. This edition restores for the modern reader Voltaire's own Englishtext, allowing us to appreciate him as a stylist at first hand. It is the only critical edition of the original text and, as well as providing an introduction and notes, it includes intriguing accounts of Voltaire by contemporary English ovservers. No library descriptions found. |
 Legacy Library:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Quick Links |
Google Books — Loading...
(3.6)| 0.5 | |
| 1 |  3 |
| 1.5 | |
| 2 | 3 |
| 2.5 | 1 |
| 3 | 24 |
| 3.5 | 3 |
| 4 | 29 |
| 4.5 | |
| 5 | 12 |
Wikipedia in English (2)
In some ways, the book can be compared with Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville, in how it flatteringly explains a nation to itself from the perspective of an outsider, as Voltaire's depictions of aspects of English culture, society and government are often given favourable treatment in comparison to their French equivalents. (