Voltaire, Histoire de la guerre de 1741 [History of the war of 1741]

Janet Godden (University of Oxford); James Hanrahan (Trinity College Dublin)
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Voltaire’s history of the War of the Austrian Succession, 1741-1748 (known as St George’s War in the US) was not published during his lifetime, nor was it included in any of the major editions of his works in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It first appeared in print in 1971 (Maurens, 1971) and has recently been edited from his surviving manuscripts (Voltaire,

OCV

, vol. 29C) showing extensive additions and rewordings, which reveal much about his methods of working. Apart from its significance as one of Voltaire’s historical writings, the

Histoire de la guerre de 1741

has the additional interest of being a complex, under-explored work by a major writer. It is closely related to Voltaire’s

Précis du siècle de Louis XV

[

Summary of the Age of Louis XV

]. The

Histoire de

2662 words

Citation: Godden, Janet, James Hanrahan. "Histoire de la guerre de 1741". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 January 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40689, accessed 28 March 2024.]

40689 Histoire de la guerre de 1741 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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