"Deist" and "heathen" authors studied by the young Frances Power Cobbe: "Gibbon, Hume, Tindal, Collins, and Voltaire ... Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch's Moralia, Xenophon's Memorabilia, and a little Plato."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe Print: Book
'The Coventry ribbon weaver Joseph Gutteridge [...] had read and pondered Voltaire's "Dictionary of Philosophy" and Paine's "Age of Reason", but remained unconvinced [by radicalism and religious scepticism] until a prolonged period of family poverty and ill-health finally destroyed what was left of his faith'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Gutteridge Print: Book
'Monday Oct -- 17 [...] Read Memoires de Voltaire by Himself'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Oct 19th [...] Read Prince Alexy Haimatoff again -- read also Political Justice [...] In
the Evening read Memoires of Voltaire by himself.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday Oct 19th [...] Read Prince Alexy Haimatoff again -- read also Political Justice [...] In
the Evening read Memoires of Voltaire by himself.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Thursday Oct -- 20th [...] After dinner read Political Justice [...] read Memoires of Voltaire -- &
the Life of Alfieri till late [...] I am much delighted with Alfieri -- He seems to have possessed
much genius & enthusiasm -- but certainly he was never very far from raving Mad -- the
anecdotes of his infancy are delightful'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Wednesday April 5th. [...] Read Memoires of Voltaire written by himself [notes anecdote from this]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Saturday October 1st. [...] Begin Voltaire's Life of Charles XII. [...] Read Tarlton to Johnny in
the Evening.
[...]
'Sunday [...] October 2nd. read the life of Charles the XII.
[...]
'Monday [...] October 3rd. [...] Finish reading Charles XII.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 15 January 1846:
'Papa used to say .. "Dont read Gibbon's history -- it's not a proper book -- Dont read "Tom Jones" -- & none of the books on [italics]this[end italics] side, mind -- So I was very obedient & never touched the books on [italics]that[end italics] side, & only read instead, Tom Paine's Age of Reason, & Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, & Hume's Essays, & Werther, & Rousseau, & Mary Woolstonecraft [sic] .. books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, & which were not "on [italics]that[end italics] side" certainly, but which did as well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 5 March 1905:
'De Vigny has come. I haven't read him all, but I'm rather disappointed: isn't he rather metallic? I read a good deal in odd moments, & a curious mixture, I think. A book I have always meant to do, I finished last week & could hardly put down at all, The Life of Parnell [...] Also the Life of Russell by the same man [R. B. O'Brien] & [Disraeli's] Coningsby which is absolutely preposterous, & [Voltaire's] La Dictionnaire Philosophique.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Leonard Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 13 January 1906:
'I have practically settled down for two weeks here [...] it is one immense sea of hills [...] I walk out onto these & wander from about 7-9 every morning & from 4-6 every evening, the rest of the day I read Voltaire's letters, Huysmans & Henry James.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
Texts from which passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book, 1931-32, include remarks on animal genitalia in Voltaire, Des Singularites de la Nature (incorporating comments such as 'Ce mecanisme est bien admirable; mais la sensation que la nature a jointe a ce mecanisme est plus admirable encore').
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Passages transcribed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1932) include extract from Voltaire, Charles XII Book 3 (on the execution of Jean Reginald Patkul, ambassador of the Czar), accompanied by comment:
'Each time I read the magnificent passage above -- at last transcribed -- I am struck by the economy of the [italics]irony[end italics] and even of the [italics]pathos[end italics]. Yet the whole passage vibrates with both. There is a sort of religious grandeur -- cruelty and cowardice are both noted without contempt.
'When will there be such writing again, or even the leisure to transcribe it? Voltaire and I do speak the same language, vast though be the difference in our vocabularies, we are both civilised [...] We belong to the cultured interlude which came between the fall of barbarism and the rise of universal "education" [...] We believe in reason, in pity, and in not always coming out right -- that is to say I hope to be logical and compassionate'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
[under heading Voltaire's Zaide] 'The warmth of feeling between Z. and Orasmane, the easiness of the action (except in the frigid double-recognition scene) suprised me, and as I cannot appreciate the badness of the French as Lytton [?Strachey] could; I enjoyed the play and should like to see it acted.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
From George Grote's Journal, 4 December 1822:
'Rose at 6. Read Goguet on the different Arts until breakfast; after breakfast read some articles
in Voltaire's Dictionn. Philosoph.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's Journal, 6 December 1822:
'Continued the perusal of Wolf's Prolegomena, which contains very much instruction as to the
literature and MSS. of antiquity.
'In the evening read some excellent articles in Volt. "Dict. Ph."; particularly articles
Consequent and Democratic. Perused Wolf until bed-time.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
From George Grote's Journal, 9 December 1822:
'Rose at 6. Employed all my reading-time this day upon Diodor., and got through 80 pages,
taking notes. He seems a more sensible writer than I had expected. A few articles in the
"Dictionn. Philos." filled up odd moments. The article on Miracles is admirable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Grote Print: Book
Harriet Cavendish to her sister, Lady Georgina Cavendish (November 1797):
'You can't imagine, G. how tourty [sic] we are of an afternoon, my aunt reads and tells us storys. The last thing she read us was Voltaire's "enfant prodige," it is beautiful. Only think how good my dear dear aunt was to me last night; I took some pills and she came and read me a very interesting story while I took them.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Ponsonby Print: Book
'Besides studying Greek and Latin, Gifford learnt French and Spanish while at Oxford. He went through Moliere's plays twice and Voltaire's works once.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Gifford Print: Book
'A very fair measure of French and some skill in drawing appear to have been the most striking accomplishments which Charlotte carried back from Roe Head [school] to Haworth. There are some twenty drawings of about this date, and a translation into English verse of the first book of Voltaire's Henriade.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte Print: Book
