The comedy "L'Envieux" is a thinly veiled allegory of the Cirey household and of Desfontaines's underhand manoeuvres against it. With the publication of Desfontaines's "Voltairomanie" in December 1738, Voltaire had to abandon the idea of having the play performed. Instead he set to work on a tragedy, "Zulime", the story of a princess in love with a slave who is already married. Even though the play was not the hoped-for success that would silence his detractors, Voltaire continued to revise it and to have it privately performed for many years. Meanwhile the printer Ledet was publishing an edition of Voltaire's works, surreptitiously including the banned "Lettres philosophiques". Voltaire's "Memoire" on the edition serves the double function of pointing out all that is new as well as the printer's many errors. The "Epitre a un ministre d'Etat" is another text that underwent significant revisions over the years. Originally addressed to Maurepas - perhaps in gratitude for his help in the Desfontaines affair - the epistle seems also to have been intended for Frederick. As Voltaire's relationship with both men deteriorated, so the poem was transformed from a tribute to patronage to a lament on the plight of the arts.

1739-1741 were stressful but highly creative years for Voltaire, his output ranging from science to polemic, from politics to poetry. Scientific research remains at the forefront, with Voltaire championing Newton's theories despite the opposition of the scientific establishment. Voltaire was in this period anxious to consolidate his reputation, and his continuing reflections on the nature of a literary career led to the publication of both his personalised "Memoire du sieur de Voltaire" and more general reflections on literary quarrels in "Memoire sur le satire". Public quarrels had become an integral part of the 'Republic of Letters' and Voltaire's disillusionment is clear in "Lettres sur les inconvenients attaches a la litterature". His verse ranges from crude satire to some of his most touching lyric poetry in the "Stances a Madame Du Chatelet". Altogether, this collection brings together the complex and contrasting works of a complex and flexible writer.

In 1767-1768 Voltaire wrote multiple times to the French authorities, whether to persuade them to improve living conditions in the Pays de Gex or to defend his own reputation as a royal historian. He also published plays, short stories and essays on topics as diverse as economics, religious tolerance and literary criticism. His fantasy "La Princesse de Babylone" was widely successful, both as a highly comic tale and an expression of Enlightenment values. Voltaire also turned his hand to comic opera in "Les Deux Tonneaux" and "Le Baron d'Otrante", as well as displaying his now familiar dexterity in verse fable and tragedy. His play "Les Guebres" as a theatrical reworking of the arguments of the "Traite sur la tolerance", which condemned establishment anti-Protestantism, through the story of the persecution of a minority religion under the Roman Empire. Voltaire's work on economic theory displays both his debt to the prevailing views of his time and his independence from them, in regarding human welfare, rather than national power, as the goal of economic activity. In some respects, 1768 can be regarded as a year of relative optimism for Voltaire, in the belief that the philosophic cause was gaining ground.