Now where did we leave off? Ah yes, Voltaire’s influential experiences in Great Britain during his self-imposed exile in 1727…
This time in England was an extremely eye-opening experience for Voltaire. He spent much of his time with the literary giants of the day (Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and the like), and began expressing his first interests in science. In fact, Voltaire was most likely an attendee of Sir Isaac Newton’s funeral in 1727. He continued publishing throughout this time – essays, poems and letters on government, religion, literature and science. Upon his return to France, he was able to invest some capital wisely and became a wealthy, and more refined, citizen of his home country. However, his love for England is obvious throughout his work – he considered their government and practices more refined – he cared more for the constitutional monarchy of Britain rather than the absolute monarchy of France. He favored democracy and free speech, and was not religious, nor overtly political. His interest in politics lay in writing – and write he did.
Over his life, Voltaire wrote over 20,000 letters and published over 2,000 books, essays, poems and pamphlets. He used his chosen platform to criticize and satirize and praise all in turn. He spent a good deal of the second half of his life living with his mistress Émilie du Châtelet, a wildly intelligent married woman with three children who spent her life reading, translating and writing natural science texts. She and Voltaire lived together openly with her husband for 16 years. After their affair ran its course, Voltaire spent his time living in Prussia, Switzerland, and eventually bought a large estate on the Franco-Swiss border in which he lived with his niece. In 1759 he published his work Candide, ou l’Optimisme (Candide, or Optimism), and its popularity at the time has remained until today – it being Voltaire’s most distinguished work. In 1964 he published a great philosophical work entitled the Dictionnaire philosophique, a “series of articles mainly on Christian history and dogmas” – in which he made his thoughts on religion apparent. His historical works [such as the History of Charles XII (1731), The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756)] were some of the first to break the tradition of narrating solely military and political events and instead focused on society and customs throughout time – looking at great art and advances in science through the ages. As we have mentioned he was prolific at epic poetry, though his prose work (essays and letters) make up the bulk of his copious publications. He was friends with Benjamin Franklin, admired and criticized Shakespeare in turns, and lived to the age of 83 – an old age indeed for his time.
So what is it that makes Voltaire the household name he is today?
I’ll get back to you on that soon… I have over 2,000 publications to read before I let you know!
Now, Voltaire’s early life does not necessarily reflect my friends insistence that Voltaire “always got away with it.” As a matter of fact… he totally didn’t. Voltaire spent almost a year imprisoned in the Bastille for accusing a member of the royal family of incest with his daughter in a satirical poem (I mean… what exactly did he expect?). Seven months after his release in 1718, however, his play Oedipus debuted at the Comédie-Française in Paris a spectacular success. Not only did it land Voltaire on the literary map (for something other than scandal), but it also marked the first time he used his pen name – Voltaire, an anagram of the Latin spelling of his surname, AROVET LI (though there are several schools of thought for how Voltaire settled on “Voltaire”). Despite the importance of this name today, what is not necessarily commonly known is that throughout his lifetime Voltaire wrote under 178 different pen names.
Barrie wrote several successful plays (and a couple flukes), but his third script brought him into contact with a young actress of the day – Mary Ansell – who would later, in 1894, become Barrie’s wife. For their union Barrie gifted Mary a St. Bernard puppy – who would become the inspiration for “Nana” in later years. They settled in London but kept a country home in Farnham, Surrey. In 1897 Barrie became acquainted with a nearby family – the Llewelyn Davies family.
Inspired largely by the stories he told to the Llewelyn Davies family, Barrie began to formulate a story of a boy who wouldn’t grow up, who flew around and had adventures. Not unlike Charles Dodgson’s Alice a century before, Barrie began to write his story into a play and once debuted in 1904, the play Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up was an immediate success. George Bernard Shaw said of the performance, “ostensibly a holiday entertainment for children, but really a play for grown-up people” – a wonderful description of the meanings and metaphors found in Peter Pan. Though children may see the adventure story on the outside, the adults in the audience could see what was really at play (pun intended) – Barrie’s social commentary on the adult’s fear of time and growing old and losing their childish innocence and fun, to name just a few.
This particular fair was also memorable for another reason… it was the first ever for my new assistant, Samm Fricke. Samm came on board last Wednesday. Yes, you read that right, she’d only been in my employ for 2 days before I whisked her off to help me man the Tavistock Books’ booth. She did great! And the good ship Tavistock…? The buying was great*; sales, not so much. But that said, unless someone buys out your booth, there’s always room for improvement, isn’t there?
* watch for our New Acquisitions list… lots of interesting material will be coming your way!
The vernal equinox has been celebrated for centuries – Ancient Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so that it faces exactly the rising sun on the vernal equinox, and pagans (or ancient Anglo-Saxons, if we’re being politically correct) celebrated the Germanic Goddess Eostre (or Ostara) – the Teutonic goddess of spring and dawn, a symbol of fertility whose sacred spirit animal was – you may have guessed it – a fertile bunny rabbit! The symbol of an egg wasn’t far away – eggs are a (pretty obvious) ancient symbol of rebirth. Christianity adopted the holiday for their own celebration of Easter, the rebirth of Jesus Christ. As is obvious from all of these examples, it is a day that celebrates the coming of spring – of greenery, harvest, enjoyment and abundance!
However, Márquez’s passion lay in writing, despite continuing his law studies in order to please his father. That did not stop him from publishing his work, however. Having published poems throughout high school in his school journals and papers, La tercera resignación was his first published work as an adult, which appeared in the 13th of September, 1947 edition of the newspaper El Espectador. Coincidentally and luckily for Márquez,the assassination of Gaitán, in 1948 led his school to be closed indefinitely. Márquez began working as a reporter at El Universal and eventually moved on to write for El Heraldo.
