Voltaire Studio
Regardless of the model adopted for the main resource,
it will have an important open-access component in
the Voltaire Studio. Last year we reported on the first
stages of the Voltaire Library Database, undertaken in
collaboration with ObTIC (Observatoire des textes, des
idées et des corpus) (Sorbonne), and are pleased to
announce that it will be publicly launched in autumn
2023. It is the fullest set of data regarding the books
(c.6000 volumes) and manuscripts (c.1000) that Voltaire
is known to have owned and used, bringing together
information from four main sources. These include the
1961 Russian-published catalogue of his books now
held in the National Library of Russia (we have corrected
some errors that have been identified in the decades
following its publication), and the 1912 inventory of the
manuscripts in the same collection. It will link to both
Digital Voltaire – most notably the edited marginalia –
and the Catalogue of Manuscripts relating to Voltaire
(see p.6). These online databases will ofer extensive
research possibilities in conjunction with Digital
Voltaire and each other,
but will also act as valuable
free-standing resources to
scholars all over the world.
The attractive user interface
and its sophisticated yet
intuitive search capabilities
are the work of Staltech
Europe Ltd, funded by a
generous grant from the
John Fell Fund (University of
Oxford). To read more about
the work that has gone into
digitally reconstructing the
200 composite volumes in
Voltaire’s library fashioned
out of shorter printed works
and sometimes manuscripts,
see p.9.
Digital d’Holbach
As well as tackling the transformation of an archival
corpus to a digital platform, the VF is exploring the
distinctive challenges of developing a born-digital
edition with the Digital d’Holbach project, which aims
to create a digital scholarly edition of the writings
of radical Enlightenment philosopher and ‘father
of atheism’ Paul-Thiry d’Holbach. Several editions
are already under way and at different stages of
completion. Funded in tandem by the British Academy
and the Leverhulme Trust, our edition of d’Holbach’s
correspondence, in particular, will significantly
advance knowledge on the Radical Enlightenment
and the circulation of ideas in 18th-century Europe.
It will also provide crucial data for a study of the
reception of d’Holbach’s ideas in late 18th-century
and Revolutionary France, as well as for an intellectual
biography of d’Holbach.
Alongside the edition, and largely thanks to it,
Holbachian studies at the Voltaire Foundation
continue to thrive. Ruggero Sciuto’s
monograph on d’Holbach’s and Diderot’s
theory of determinism was published earlier
this year in the Oxford University Studies in
the Enlightenment series, and the recent
conference of the International Society
for Eighteenth-Century Studies gave three
members of our team a chance to showcase
their research. Meanwhile, Ruggero Sciuto
and Gillian Pink are working on an addition
to Jeroom Vercruysse’s bibliography of
d’Holbach’s publications – an indispensable step
towards the completion of the project – and a great
collaborative volume on d’Holbach’s masterpiece, the
Système de la nature, is gradually taking shape.
Read Ruggero
Sciuto’s
article in
Dix-huitième
siècle on the
Digital
d’Holbach
project
VOLTAIRE FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2022/23 | 5