Description: Voltaire: A Reference Guide To His Life and Works offers an introduction to this unique 18th-century French author. The multifaceted Voltaire was a thinker, a rebel, a writer, an exile, and a campaigner who became a transnational celebrity in his day.
Brief description: Síofra Pierse is head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and associate professor of French and Francophone Studies at UCD Dublin. She specializes in 18th-century French literature and history of ideas. She is author of Voltaire Historiographer: Narrative Paradigms (2008), editor of The City in Eighteenth-Century French Writing (2004) and co-editor of The Dark Side of Diderot (with James Hanrahan 2014) and Turmoil: Instability and Insecurity in the Eighteenth-Century francophone text (with Emma M. Dunne 2022). She enjoys working on 18th-century Francophone topics, particularly female writers and Voltaire.
Review Quotes:
"Engaging ... If Voltaire's great gift, and the secret of his continuing appeal, was his ability to synthesize complex ideas and make his writing accessible, then Pierse's study accomplishes a similar goal today for his expansive oeuvre." --French Review
"With this attractive book, Pearse (Univ. College Dublin, Ireland) has delivered a major contribution to the publisher's "Significant Figures in World History" series ... Highly recommended. All readers." --CHOICE