"Under his instruction -while we read together part of Voltaire's 'Charles the Twelfth' and 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' of Moliere - I caught hold of such good French pronunciation as would have enabled me soon to converse very pleasantly in the language, could I have found acompanion"
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Cooper Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
I usually when I had done with my french, read some book every night and having left the Corresponding Society I never went from home in the evening I always learned and read for three hours and sometimes longer, the books I now read were french; Helvetius, Rousseau and Voltaire. I never wanted books and could generally borrow those I most desired to peruse.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Place Print: Book
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 31 March 1817: 'I have bought several books ... among others a complete Voltaire in 92 volumes -- whom I have been reading -- he is delightful but dreadfully inaccurate frequently.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 14 April 1817: 'I have read a good deal of Voltaire lately ... what I dislike is his extreme inaccuracy ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron Print: Book
... [H. G.] Wells relearnt French by reading Voltaire for himself in the early 1880s and through visits to France ...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: H. G. Wells Print: Book
'She began Candide but "threw it aside, and nothing, I believe, will tempt me ever to look into it again."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter Print: Book
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
'On the next day (Saturday 9th) I went to Canterbury in the diligence, during w'ch I amused myself with reading part of Voltaire's "Candide", w'ch having read a great many years ago at Salisbury & almost forgot, I bought the day before in duodecimo. Having dined at the King's Head I went out & got "Caleb Williams" of w'ch I had heard much & of w'ch I read great part of the 1st vol. in the evening at the King's Head (where I also supp'd & slept) leaving the 2d. vol of "Candide" to read on my return to London.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
?After having read the great champions for Christianity, I next read the works of Lord Hesbert, Tindal, Chubb, Morgan, Collins, Woolston, Annet, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Williams, Voltaire, and many other Free-thinkers.?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
Another great source of amusement as well as knowledge, I have met with in reading almost all the best novels (Cervantes, Fielding, Smollet, Richardson, Miss Burney, Voltaire, Sterne, Le Sage, Goldsmith and others).?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'Finished Voltaire's Candide again after many years' interval'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
'In the evening read memoirs of Voltaire.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Read Zadig.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Print: Book
'Absorbed as always in books, Willie read seriously in both French and German literature. His favourites in French were the "Maximes" of La Rochefoucauld, "La Princesse de Cleves" (which inspired his play "Caesar's Wife"), the tragedies of Racine, the novels of Voltaire, Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir" and "La Chartreuse de Parme", Balzac's "Pere Goriot", Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", the works of Anatole France, the exotic tales of Pierre Loti and the well-crafted stories of Maupassant'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Somerset Maugham Print: Book
'Go to the tomb and read the essay on sepulchres there - Shelley is out all the morning at the Lawyers but nothing is done - read Voltaire's tales'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'After that I read Voltaire's "Candide", and at 12 o'clock adjourned for a pint to the local pub. Switched on the wireless again at 2.0 for the same reason as before, and off at 2.30. Reading Pat Sloan's "Soviet Democracy" all the afternoon.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
'Mr de Regis read us "Semiramis" a fine trajedy of Voltaire what gave me great pleasure'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: [Mr] de Regis Print: Unknown
'But the most extraordinary production of any, I have seen these many days, is "La Pucelle d'Orleans" an Epic by Voltaire. This Mock-Heroic illustrates several things -First that the French held Voltaire a sort of demigod - secondly (and consequently) that they were wrong in so doing - and thirdly that the said Voltaire is the most impudent, blaspheming, libidinous blackgaurd [sic] that ever lived.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'A much greater man than Rousseau says, "The only remedy for the infectious disease of Fanaticism, is a philosophical temper, which spreading through society, at length softens manners, and obviates the excesses of the distemper; for whenever it get ground, the best way is to fly from it and stay till the air is purified. The laws and religion are no preservative against this mental pestilence; religion so far from being a salutary aliment in these cases, in infected brains becomes poison" (Lackington continues to quote 2 further paragraphs).
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington Print: Book
'Finished Voltaire's "Siecle de Louis 14me.": a most entertaining and instructive work...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'after dinner read l'esprit des nations 132 Shelley read[s] Italian - read 15 lines of Ovids metamo[r]phosis with Hogg - [italics to indicate Shelley's hand] The Assassins - Gibbon Chap. LXIV - all that can be known of the assassins is to be found in Memoires of the Acad[e]my of Inscriptions tom. xvii p127-170'.[end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'read Ovid with Hogg (fin. 2nd fable). Shelley reads Gibbon and pastor fido with Clary - in the evening read Esprit des Nations (72). S. reads Pastor Fido (102) and Gibbon (vol 12 - 364) and the story of Myrrha in Ovid'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Read Voltaire before breakfast (87)'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'After tea read Ovid 83 lines - Shelley two or three cantos of Ariosto with Clary and plays a game of chess with her Read Voltaire's Essay on the Spirit of Nations'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'[italics to denote Shelley's hand] S. reads Ovid - Medea and the description of the Plague - After tea M. reads Ovid 90 lines - S & C. read Ariosto - 7th Canto. M. reads Voltaire p. 126.'[end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'Shelley reads Voltaire Essai sur des Nations'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Jefferson reads Don Quixote - C. reads Gibbon - S. finishes the 17th canto of Orlando Furioso - Read Voltaire's Essay on Nations (203)'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley - again, only those not mentioned in journal entries are indicated separately in the database]
'Posthumous Works. 3.
Sorrows of Werter
Don Roderick - by Southey
Gibbons Decline & fall.
x Paradise Regained
x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2
x Lara
New Arabian Nights 3
Corinna
Fall of the Jesuits
Rinaldo Rinaldini
Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds
Hermsprong
Le diable boiteux
Man as he is.
Rokeby.
Ovid's Metamo[r]phoses in Latin
x Wordsworth's Poems
x Spenser's Fairy Queen
x Life of the Philipps
x Fox's History of James II
The Reflector
Wieland.
Fleetwood
Don Carlos
x Peter Wilkins
Rousseau's Confessions.
x Espriella's Letters from England
Lenora - a poem
Emile
x Milton's Paradise Lost
X Life of Lady Hamilton
De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael
3 vols. of Barruel
x Caliph Vathek
Nouvelle Heloise
x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia.
Waverly
Clarissa Harlowe
Robertson's Hist. of america
x Virgil
xTale of Tub.
x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing
x Curse of Kehama
x Madoc
La Bible Expliquee
Lives of Abelard and Heloise
The New Testament
Coleridge's Poems.
1st vol. Syteme de la Nature
x Castle of Indolence
Chattertons Poems.
x Paradise Regained
Don Carlos.
x Lycidas.
x St Leon
Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud
Burkes account of civil society
x Excursion
Pope's Homer's Illiad
x Sallust
Micromegas
x Life of Chauser
Canterbury Tales
Peruvian letters.
Voyages round the World
Pluarch's lives.
x 2 vols of Gibbon
Ormond
Hugh Trevor
x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War
Lewis's tales
Castle of Udolpho
Guy Mannering
Charles XII by Voltaire
Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Shelley goes alone to the Glacier of Boison - I stay at home - read several tales of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'I read Voltaires Romans. S. reads Lucretius ... talks with Clare'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] Voltaire's "Louis XIV", in English; ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
'S. reads "France" - read Romans de Voltaire - Hume'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Tristram Shandy - Sentimental Journey - Zadig and Clarke'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Electra and Ajax. Read the 8th Canto of Ariosto and the 4th Act of Phormio - Finish the Mille et une nuits. Read the Zaire and the Alzire of Voltaire'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads Electra and Ajax. Read the 8th Canto of Ariosto and the 4th Act of Phormio - Finish the Mille et une nuits. Read the Zaire and the Alzire of Voltaire'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 10th Canto of Ariosto - the Mahomet of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 11th Canto of Ariosto & Merope & Simiramis [sic] of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 11th Canto of Ariosto & Merope & Simiramis [sic] of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 12 Canto of Ariosto - & L'orphelin de Chine & Tancrede of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 12 Canto of Ariosto - & L'orphelin de Chine & Tancrede of Voltaire'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'[Shelley] Reads & I also Voltaires memoires by himself'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'[Shelley] Reads & I also Voltaires memoires by himself'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Greek - Voltaire's Tales'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Her Royal Highness once read through the whole of 'Candide' to one of her ladies, who told me her opinion of it, which does her honour. She said, - "its character as a work of extreme cleverness has been so long established that to venture in the least to detract from it, is to encounter the ridicule of a multitude. I must say, however, that the persiflage which reigns throughout, and in which its whole essence consists, is not consonant to my taste or understanding. Vicious subjects ought not to be treated lightly; they merit the coarsest clothing, and ought to be arrayed in language which would create abhorrence and disgust. But the whole works [sic] seems designed to turn vice into virtue. Either it has no aim or end, or it has one which should be loathed. It must be confessed, however, that the tripping levity of its self-assurance, and the sarcastic drollery of its phrase, excite laughter; but it is a poor prerogative after all, to be the mental buffoon of ages".
Though I, perhaps, have more indulgence for Voltaire, in consideration of his vast talents, than my friend, yet I admired the [italics] woman [end italics] who thought and spoke thus; and her Royal Highness is fortunate in having such a friend'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Princess Caroline Princess of Wales Print: Book
'Her Royal Highness once read through the whole of 'Candide' to one of her ladies, who told me her opinion of it, which does her honour. She said, - "its character as a work of extreme cleverness has been so long established that to venture in the least to detract from it, is to encounter the ridicule of a multitude. I must say, however, that the persiflage which reigns throughout, and in which its whole essence consists, is not consonant to my taste or understanding. Vicious subjects ought not to be treated lightly; they merit the coarsest clothing, and ought to be arrayed in language which would create abhorrence and disgust. But the whole works [sic] seems designed to turn vice into virtue. Either it has no aim or end, or it has one which should be loathed. It must be confessed, however, that the tripping levity of its self-assurance, and the sarcastic drollery of its phrase, excite laughter; but it is a poor prerogative after all, to be the mental buffoon of ages".
Though I, perhaps, have more indulgence for Voltaire, in consideration of his vast talents, than my friend, yet I admired the [italics] woman [end italics] who thought and spoke thus; and her Royal Highness is fortunate in having such a friend'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: a lady in waiting to Princess Caroline Print: Book
'Her Royal Highness once read through the whole of 'Candide' to one of her ladies, who told me her opinion of it, which does her honour. She said, - "its character as a work of extreme cleverness has been so long established that to venture in the least to detract from it, is to encounter the ridicule of a multitude. I must say, however, that the persiflage which reigns throughout, and in which its whole essence consists, is not consonant to my taste or understanding. Vicious subjects ought not to be treated lightly; they merit the coarsest clothing, and ought to be arrayed in language which would create abhorrence and disgust. But the whole works [sic] seems designed to turn vice into virtue. Either it has no aim or end, or it has one which should be loathed. It must be confessed, however, that the tripping levity of its self-assurance, and the sarcastic drollery of its phrase, excite laughter; but it is a poor prerogative after all, to be the mental buffoon of ages".
Though I, perhaps, have more indulgence for Voltaire, in consideration of his vast talents, than my friend, yet I admired the [italics] woman [end italics] who thought and spoke thus; and her Royal Highness is fortunate in having such a friend'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bury Print: Book
'Affectation is never more tiresome and ridiculous than in a letter. Madame de Sevigne was the best letter-writer that ever existed. I would rank Swift and Lord Chesterfield next. Voltaire to me is charming; but then I suspect he studied his epistles, as Lord Orford certainly did, and so had little merit. Heloise wrote beautifully in the old time; but we are very poor, both in England and Scotland, as to such matters'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Sharpe Print: Book
'I understand from Mr. Bagguley that it is you who are the craftsman of the binding of the "Candide" which he has been so kind as to give me. Will you allow me to offer you my most sincere congratulations on your extraordinary art?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'This Tale ["Rasselas"], with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shews us that this stage of our being is full of "vanity and vexation of spirit". [Boswell comments on its value] Voltaire's "Candide", written to refute the system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's "Rasselas"; insomuch, that I have heard Johnson say, that if they had not been published so closely one after the other that there was not time for imitation, it would have been vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other. Though the proposition illustrated by both these works was the same, namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton profanness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to discredit the belief of a superintending Providence: Johnson meant, by shewing the unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
'This Tale ["Rasselas"], with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shews us that this stage of our being is full of "vanity and vexation of spirit". [Boswell comments on its value] Voltaire's "Candide", written to refute the system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's "Rasselas"; insomuch, that I have heard Johnson say, that if they had not been published so closely one after the other that there was not time for imitation, it would have been vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other. Though the proposition illustrated by both these works was the same, namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton profanness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to discredit the belief of a superintending Providence: Johnson meant, by shewing the unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'When I talked of our [the Scots'] advancement in literature, "Sir, (said he,) you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written History, had not Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire." Boswell "But, Sir, we have Lord Kames." Johnson. "You [italics] have [italics] Lord Кames. Keep him; ha, ha, ha! We don't envy you him. Do you ever see Dr. Robertson?" Boswell. "Yes, Sir." Johnson. "Does the dog talk of me ?" Boswell. "Indeed, Sir, he does, and loves you." Thinking that I now had him in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of my country, I pressed him for his opinion on the merit of Dr. Robertson's "History of Scotland". But, to my surprise, he escaped.—" Sir, I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'While their [her daughters'] Father's Life preserv'd my Authority entire, I used it [italics] all & only [end italics] for their Improvement; & since it expired with him, & my Influence perished by my Connection with Piozzi - I have read to them what I could not force or perswade them to read for themselves. The English & Roman Histories, the Bible; - not Extracts, but the whole from End to End - Milton, Shakespeare, Pope's Iliad, Odyssey & other Works, some Travels through the well-known Parts of Europe; some elegant Novels as Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Voltaire's Zadig &c. Young & Addison's works, Plays out of Number, Rollin's Belles Lettres - and hundreds of Things now forgot, have filled our Time up since we left London for Bath.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale and her daughters Hester, Susanna and Sophia Print: Book
Robert Southey to Thomas Phillips Lamb, 28 October 1792: 'If the Baron of Thundertentroncks castle had not been destroyd (said Dr Pangloss to Candidus) if Miss Cunegonda had not been ript up alive by the Bulgarian soldiers — if I had not been hung, if you had not killd an inquisitor & been burnt by the inquisition, we should not have been now eating pistachio nuts. alls for the best.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 November - 2 December 1793: 'Do not imagine that I am vindicating the stile of Candide when I differ with you in judgement. no book perhaps is more subversive of morality — but has not the poignant ridicule many advantages? were ever the pride of birth & of heroism better held up to the contempt they merit? against these vices that have so long infected society ridicule is the best weapon. had Voltaires heart been equal to his head such a man might have reformd the world. to argue against the arrogance of hereditary honors — or the glory of military atchievements is labor lost. their absurdity & injustice are evident as noon-day light — ridicule shews them in their strongest colours. when you laugh at the Baron of Thundertentroach & Candides heroism do you feel a satisfaction superior to common merriment?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey Print: Book
'On board the steamer between Marseilles and Malta, besides reading "Hypatia", which was "too highly coloured" for his taste, and re-reading "Tancred", and writing "more than half the preface" to his lectures, he found time to send home a long letter'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Penrhyn Stanley Print: Book
'Find invaluable passage of Voltaire on Lucifer and Liberty; article in dictionary on "Abus des mots". The Lucifer is invaluable to me, because the devil being called Lucifer is such a prophetic intimation of Science!'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin Print: Book
'Wilde also excelled in French. His copy of Voltaire's "Histoire de Charles XII" bears the autograph and date "Oscar Wilde September 2nd 1865 [...] On page 171 the ten-year-old boy has written the words "Oscar 8 November 1865", no doubt to mark his remarkable progress with the demanding French text.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde Print: Book
'The subject of Voltaire was then taken. H. R. Smith gave an outline of his life. Mrs Robson read the Hermits Tale from Zadig. After refreshments F. E. Pollard gave us an idea of Voltaire's thought & influence Mrs Evans read from Letters From England & Mrs T. C. Eliott gave us some conception of his place in French literature some discussion closing an interesting evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robson Print: Book
'The subject of Voltaire was then taken. H. R. Smith gave an outline of his life. Mrs Robson read the Hermits Tale from Zadig. After refreshments F. E. Pollard gave us an idea of Voltaire's thought & influence Mrs Evans read from Letters From England & Mrs T. C. Eliott gave us some conception of his place in French literature some discussion closing an interesting evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'The subject of Voltaire was then taken. H. R. Smith gave an outline of his life. Mrs Robson read the Hermits Tale from Zadig. After refreshments F. E. Pollard gave us an idea of Voltaire's thought & influence Mrs Evans read from Letters From England & Mrs T. C. Eliott gave us some conception of his place in French literature some discussion closing an interesting evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Francis Pollard Print: Book
'The subject of Voltaire was then taken. H. R. Smith gave an outline of his life. Mrs Robson read the Hermits Tale from Zadig. After refreshments F. E. Pollard gave us an idea of Voltaire's thought & influence Mrs Evans read from Letters From England & Mrs T. C. Eliott gave us some conception of his place in French literature some discussion closing an interesting evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: C. Elliott Print: Book
'It is years since I have read "Candide" of course in French. I must tell you I have been immensely pleased by the particular quality of this translation.'
[Hence follow five lines of further praise for the translation.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I have found Voltaire's ''Louis XIV. very pleasant and short, leaving out all the battles. Voltaire seems so impressed with his magnanimity and generosity ... V. seems really to forget where the money came from.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Emma Darwin Print: Book
'My French is under rather different conditions to yours, as I read from 10 - 11 every night
except on Wednesdays when I write to you. I have really never counted exactly how much I
cover and it wd. not be accurate to count by pages, as they vary so in size and in type.... Then
again why not get something in that 1/6 Dents edition with the lovely paper, say Voltaire's
"Contes" (very amusing)....'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
