Voltaire is one of those amazing figures in literature and enlightenment. Even if he started as an author of theater, he soon became a leading political voice in France in the eighteenth century, advocating for more democracy, justice, science and less church. He wrote around 20,000 letters in his life, and many of those were the source material for Davidson to write this magnificent biography. We not only get insights in the author's opinions, but also about his ongoing battles with the establishment, his incarceration and exile, his turbulent love life with Emilie de Chatelet, his scam to win the Paris lottery which made him extremely rich. A man with opinions on everything and everyone, but at the same time willing to suffer the consequences of his opinions.
The book is quite heavy, with close to 500 pages of relatively small print, and many letter excerpts, yet Voltaire's thinking and life seem to come back to life in Davidson's extremely well-documented text. That is of course largely due to Voltaire's own unusual life, but also to Davidson's skills.
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