Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works

This compact volume offers a vivid portrait of the French Enlightenment’s most outspoken advocate of reason and universal tolerance. Through a blend of narrative and carefully chosen excerpts, listeners hear Voltaire’s sharp wit, biting satire, and passionate pleas for justice in his own voice. The authors present him from the standpoint of a modern freethinker, showing how his relentless fight against superstition and oppression still echoes today.

The story begins with the newborn François‑Marie Arouet in 1694 Paris, a fragile child whose early baptism hinted at a life far from conventional piety. Educated by the Jesuits and nurtured by a well‑connected family, he quickly displayed a prodigious talent for verse and was drawn into the vibrant salon of Ninon de l’Enclos, whose patronage granted him a modest library and the confidence to adopt the pen name Voltaire. These formative experiences set the stage for the daring critic and literary firebrand he would become.