Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom

This new biography's title seems to deify one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment, whose writings espoused reason and the dignity of man. But while Pearson, a professor of French at Oxford, speaks loftily of Voltaire (1694–1778) as a hero, his book offers a grounded portrait of his long and often troubled life. Born François-Marie Arouet, he was imprisoned early on for his heretical writings and was exiled from Paris for 25 years. His work wasn't truly respected until he was past 80 and near death; it was then that statues of him were erected and he became godlike. Voltaire's plays caused a furor because they satirized the Catholic Church and the royal family, against whose repressive rule Voltaire revolted in his writings and through his financial support of victims of the repression. His business fortune also went to the two women in his life, the Marquise du Châtelet, a mathematician and his longtime mistress, and his niece (and also his mistress), Marie-Louise Denis. Yet the author of Candide and major works of philosophy seems to have had less interest in the physicality of love than in the emotion, and this book illuminates the man as he struggled to support freedom in a repressive world. (Nov.)