Something between a tale and a polemic, these "fables of reason" are feats of narrative compression and contain much of Voltaire's best and funniest writing.
From ribald tales of adultery to conversations between cosmic travellers, the stories in this collection pose moral, philosophical and social questions. Reader and protagonist alike find their assumptions challenged as Voltaire mingles rationality and fantasy.
Micromegas
Introduction
Chronology of Voltaire's Life and Times
Further Reading
Note on the Texts
Translator's Note
Contes
Cuckoldage
The One-eyed Porter
Cosi-Sancta
Micromegas
The World As It Is
Memnon
Letter from a Turk
Plato's Dream
The History of the Travels of Scarmentado
The Consoler and the Consoled
The Story of a Good Brahmin
Pot-Pourri
An Indian Incident
Lord Chesterfield's Ears
Melanges
Account of the Illness, Confession, Death and Apparition of the Jesuit Berthier
Dialogue between a Savage and a Graduate
Dialogue between Ariste and Acrotal
The Education of Daughters
Wives, Submit Yourselves to Your Husbands
Dialogue between the Cock and the Hen
Conversation between Lucian, Erasmus and Rabelais, in the Elysian Fields
Notes
