Includes articles on architecture, cultural history, the 'Luxury debate' in the eighteenth century, Rousseau, and the manuscript of The Life of John Wilkes with commentary and contextualisation.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of SVEC, this collection of essays examines the current state of eighteenth-century French studies; it revisits a familiar canon, investigates more recently discovered fields of enquiry, and explores new perspectives for research. Eighteenth-century studies today are characterised above all by their re-examination of categories and boundaries. We are witnessing a progressive broadening of the canon, not least in our rediscovery of women's writing, and a reinvestigation of apparently 'minor' works by apparently 'familiar' authors. There has been path-breaking research, too, in areas which reflect our broadening conception of eighteenth-century studies, from literature of travel to post-colonial writing, translation to the press, popular literature to clandestine manuscripts. Different perspectives on eighteenth-century writing have been opened up by new ways of reading which draw on research in cultural studies, history of the book or rhetorical analysis. New insights have emerged from studying the interaction of text and image, word and music, the points of contact between the worlds of science and the arts, of politics, philosophy and literature, exchanges across national and linguistic boundaries, or across the artificial divisions of 'one' century. Inclusive, interdisciplinary and international, this volume embodies the principles which inspired the creation of SVEC by Theodore Besterman in 1955; it investigates our changing images of writers and writing to the categories in which we may try to confine them, from 'Voltaire' to the 'eighteenth century'. The Eighteenth century now suggests our sense of identification with the period, the vibrancy of present research in both individual and collaborative projects, and the promise of immediacy and exchange in the electronic age. But it also evokes the boundaries which remain, financial, institutional, intellectual, and which present the challenge of the future. Its aim is as much to provoke thought as to provide answers, to stimulate as well as to celebrate.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Francoise de Graffigny est une femme de lettres paradoxale; elle avoue craindre 'le nom d'auteur', mais ses ecrits font preuve d'une originalite hardie. Pour la premiere fois la grande diversite de son oeuvre fait ici l'objet d'un examen: sa correspondance, qui mele des observations penetrantes sur son epoque a des reflexions franches sur les diverses facettes de sa vie de provinciale depaysee, de salonniere celebre, d'ecrivain novateur, et de femme - en toutes lettres; son drame sentimental, Cenie, et autres pieces morales ou philosophiques; ses premiers contes; et ses Lettres d'une Peruvienne, que l'on s'arrache au dix-huitieme siecle, devenu roman iconique des dernieres decennies. La femme et l'oeuvre deroutent, pourtant, comme elles fascinent. Francoise de Graffigny inspire le respect, l'amour aussi parfois, chez ses amis et les habitues de son salon; les Lettres d'une Peruvienne et Cenie sont lus, commentes et maintes fois traduits partout en Europe. Mais au moyen de reecritures, de traductions ou de comptes rendus, on tente neanmoins de recuperer une oeuvre qui, s'attaquant aux conventions, destabilise, pour la reporter dans des categories familieres. A travers une panoplie de reactions, nous decouvrons l'image que l'on s'est faite de cette femme ecrivain, domestiquee en fonction des gouts de son epoque. L'image de l'ecrivain qui emerge de ce volume n'est pas unifiee; elle ne se cantonne pas a celle, metaphorique, de l'auteur sentimental, ou feministe. Diverses approches critiques - comparatistes et narratologiques, biographiques et bibliographiques - nous font voir la richesse d'une oeuvre polyvalente situee aux frontieres du vecu et de l'imaginaire, du public et du prive, du traditionnel et de l'experimental. Francoise de Graffigny resiste a toute interpretation reductrice, ideologique, au vingt-et-unieme siecle comme au dix-huitieme. Elle est une femme de lettres exceptionnelle, insaisissable, soit irresistible.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

This collection of eighty-nine letters written by Parisian and other European map publishers to the London map firm of Jefferys & Faden represents one of the few business archives left to us from the eighteenth-century map trade. Thomas Jefferys (c.1720-1771) and William Faden (1749-1836) both enjoyed the title of 'Geographer to the King of England' and were well respected by other geographers of the period. Like many of his contemporaries in the map trade, Jefferys had difficulty making a financial success of his map business; his successor Faden, by contrast, was able to expand the firm into a flourishing business which continued well into the nineteenth century. Their correspondents included important European map and print publishers such as Covens & Mortier in Amsterdam and Lattre, Julien and Desnos in Paris, as well as the French geographers d'Anville and Robert de Vaugondy. Other persons mentioned in the correspondence provide links between Faden's London firm and the Depot de la Marine, the French Navy's cartographic department, an important connection in the tumultuous decade of 1773-1783 when England found itself at war with France in North America, in the English Channel, and in India. The letters also provide a detailed view of the costs of doing business - prices, discount, payment, schedules and methods, shipping costs and arrangements- in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and further increase our knowledge of the economics of map production and sales in this period. The letters are now in the Manuscript Division of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan. In this edition they have been transcribed and fully annotated and are preceded by an introduction placing the correspondence in the context of the print and book trade and the role of cartography in eighteenth-century politics.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Les annees 1752-1753 du sejour prussien de Voltaire sont marquees par deux querelles a rebondissements et d'une extreme virulence: l'une oppose l'auteur a La Beaumelle (la parution du "Supplement au Siecle de Louis XIV" en marquera une etape), l'autre le met aux prises avec Maupertuis et Frederic II, et Voltaire en rendra compte sur le mode satirique dans son "Histoire du docteur Akakia", dont l'edition critique est presentee dans ce volume.

"Pamela" and the "Memoires pour servir a la vie de Monsieur de Voltaire" are accounts of the author's own life, concentrating particularly on his relationship with the king of Prussia. They were composed in the 1750s, one of the most turbulent decades in Voltaire's life, which opened shortly after the death of Mme Du Chatelet with an extended visit to Prussia, and ended with his installation at Ferney with Mme Denis. It was a decade of extreme contrasts shaped by his relationship with Frederick the Great, a period of supreme, seemingly unassailable celebrity and of public humiliation, of independence and exile, of power and vulnerability. The texts are unusual in the works of Voltaire, for two reasons: they are both written as first-person narratives, dealing with the actions and emotions of the writer; and they were both unpublished during the lifetime of the author. "Pamela", a reworking of letters to Mme Denis during his years in Prussia (which were long thought to be authentic), gives a very carefully constructed view of the period, where attitudes are modified, chronology manipulated, details omitted. The same is true of the "Memoires", where the perspective is different, but still issues are simplified, and evidence changed at will. Through these two texts, Voltaire speaks directly to posterity, as he seeks to claim the authority to write about himself, to create and control his image.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

'It has taken me a long time, my dearest Aza, to fathom the cause of that contempt in which women are held in this country ...' Zilia, an Inca Virgin of the Sun, is captured by the Spanish conquistadores and brutally separated from her lover, Aza. She is rescued and taken to France by Deterville, a nobleman, who is soon captivated by her. One of the most popular novels of the eighteenth century, the Letters of a Peruvian Woman recounts Zilia's feelings on her separation from both her lover and her culture, and her experience of a new and alien society. Francoise de Graffigny's bold and innovative novel clearly appealed to the contemporary taste for the exotic and the timeless appetite for love stories. But by fusing sentimental fiction and social commentary, she also created a new kind of heroine, defined by her intellect as much as her feelings. The novel's controversial ending calls into question traditional assumptions about the role of women both in fiction and society, and about what constitutes 'civilization'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A critical edition of "Le Misanthrope." The introduction examines the interlocking levels of comedy apparent both in the play's literary texture and in the original performance, and discusses the history of its reception, showing how it is constantly adapted to the values of changing times.

En 1894, un siecle apres sa mort, Condorcet est porte au faite de la gloire par la troisieme Republique. Pourquoi et comment un philosophe des Lumieres, mathematiciens, revolutionnaire, devient-il l'un des heros peuplant la memoire collective ? L'evenement ne s'inscrit pas dans un continuum historique et n'est pas l'aboutissement d'un long processus qui aurait commence des la disparition du personnage. Les auteurs qui commentent et interpretent la pensee, l'action ou la vie de Condorcet, appartiennent aux horizons politiques et philosophiques les plus divers; leurs discours respectifs s'affrontent souvent. Parfois des lignes de fractures traversent une meme configuration idealogique car chaque exegete opere des choix dans l'oeuvre du philosophe et en recuse des pans entiers. Pour rendre compte de cette prolixite du fait interpretatif, la demarche se situe a la rencontre de l'etude conceptuelle et symbolique. L'analyse des formes textuelles et des concepts philosophiques s'articule a une analyse des effets institutionnels et a une exploration de l'imaginaire (iconographie, statuomanie, celebrations). La permeabilite et l'entrelacement de ces types discursifs permettent de definir la plasticite de la figure de Condorcet qui conduit a la naissance posthume de l'eidolon: a la fois image et sens.