Volume 52, Number 20 · December 15, 2005
Cultivating Voltaire's Garden
By P.N. Furbank
Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 1753–78
by Ian Davidson
Grove, 343 pp., $24.00
Candide, or, Optimism
by Voltaire,translated by Peter Constantine, with an introduction by Diane Johnson
Modern Library, 119 pp., $19.95
Candide, or Optimism
by Voltaire,translated by Burton Raffel
Yale University Press, 132 pp., $22.00
In March 1753 Voltaire's three-year sojourn at the court of Frederick the Great came to an acrimonious end: so ill-tempered that, upon Voltaire's arrival in Frankfurt on his way home, Frederick had him put under house arrest, for illegal possession of some of his (the King's) poems. He was joined in Frankfurt by his niece and lover Mme Denis, and she was put under arrest likewise; and it was only through a public outcry that, in July, they were at last released. Whereupon Voltaire, inured to Fortune's hard knocks and dirty tricks and quite uncowed, spent five luxurious weeks as the guest of two other highly placed friends, the Prince-Bishop of Mainz and the Elector Palatine.
Review, 3453 words
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