{"product_id":"voltaire-s-workshop","title":"Voltaire’s Workshop","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCandide\u003c\/em\u003e is the best-known, most singular expression of Voltaire’s thought, standing out not only within the author’s tremendous output but also within the thousand-year tradition of French literature. It is studied in every major language and its phrases are a part of everyday speech, in English and in French. Yet Voltaire didn’t keep any records about how and when he composed \u003cem\u003eCandide\u003c\/em\u003e or any hints to its underlying meaning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond popular acclaim, \u003cem\u003eCandide\u003c\/em\u003e’s status is cemented by the work of critics concerned with the circumstances of its composition. Their research has led to a wealth of secondary literature but surprisingly few conclusions. In \u003cem\u003eVoltaire’s Workshop\u003c\/em\u003e Edward Langille argues that the 1750 French translation of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones by Pierre-Antoine de La Place was Candide’s most important source. Langille uncovers a range of similarities – of vocabulary and phrasing, overarching narrative structures, and composition of characters – and pertinent commentary in other works by Voltaire. Through the La Place translation, he argues, Fielding furnished Voltaire with a plot, a framework, and a set of characters that he could rewrite into a text that struck contemporary readers as entirely original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVoltaire’s Workshop\u003c\/em\u003e addresses one of literature’s greatest mysteries, raising larger questions about how Voltaire worked and wrote fiction and, more broadly, about textual filiations in the eighteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Edward M. Langille","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54882181513596,"sku":"9780228024705","price":91.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/9780228024705.jpg?v=1737125889","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/voltaire-s-workshop","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}