About Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), known as Voltaire, was a writer, philosopher, poet, dramatist, historian and polemicist of the French Enlightenment. The diversity of his literary output is rivalled only by its abundance: the critical edition of his complete works begun in 1968 and finished in 2022 comprises 205 hardback volumes.

'The age of Voltaire' has become synonymous with 'the Enlightenment', but although Voltaire's eminence as a philosophe is self-evident, the precise originality of his thought and writings is less easily defined.

Read about his life and legacy, or watch this short animated video, School of Life: Voltaire, created by philosopher Alain de Botton and scripted by Nicholas Cronk.