Presentation
The Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations is one of Voltaire’s most important works in history. Encompassing Europe from the 9th until the 17th century and the rest of the world since the Antiquity, this definitive edition of the Essai will contain 8 volumes (vol. 21 to vol. 27B, 600 pages each) in the Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire collection published by the Voltaire Foundation.
The grant of the Wiener – Anspach Foundation has been used to fund some of the costs of the researches for three volumes (vol. 22 in 2010, vol. 23 in 2011, vol. 24 in 2012) as well as for the publication of volume 65a and the promotion of the project in Oxford (Bruno Bernard’s conference at Wolfson College in October 2010) and Brussels (Bruno Bernard, Janet Godden and John Renwick’s conferences at the Collège Belgique, Palais des Académies, in October 2012).
Three stays, funded by the Foundation, have been made in Oxford by Bruno Bernard in order to work in the Voltaire Room of the Taylor Institution’s Library. In May 2011 Nicholas Cronk has stayed a few days in Brussels and read a paper on the project at a meeting of the Ecole Doctorale d’Histoire hosted by the ULB.
Promoters
- Nicholas Cronk, The Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford
- Bruno Bernard, Groupe d’étude du XVIIIe siècle, ULB