Voltaire - Mémoires de M. de Voltaire - 1784

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet). Memoirs of Mr. Voltaire. Geneva, n.p., 1784, 174 pp.

One volume in octavo (220x140 mm), blue binding, bradel binding (20th-century binding). Good condition of the binding. Restorations on the title page and in the upper corner of the first four pages. Interior fresh.

Original posthumous edition

The writing of these memoirs probably dates back to the 1750s, but their publication takes place only after Voltaire’s death, in 1784. The history of their transmission remains controversial. The manuscript is said to have been kept by Wagnière, Voltaire’s private secretary, before circulating among several hands. The 1784 edition appears without an editor’s name in Geneva and constitutes the first publication of this autobiographical text.

The Memoirs of Voltaire constitute an autobiographical narrative essentially devoted to the author’s relations with Frederick II and to his stay at the Prussian court between 1750 and 1753. Voltaire recounts his arrival in Berlin, his relations with the sovereign, the intellectual and philosophical exchanges that bind them, but also the disagreements, tensions and conflicts that ultimately lead to his departure.