François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. Socrates is a play in three acts about Socrates and the events of his trial and eventual death. Satirical in nature it takes aim at government authority and organized religion. Voltaire's contempt for government and religion come, through clearly in this play....

In THE TWO WINE CASKS, a spurned priest of Bacchus switches the wine cups at a wedding to avenge himself on the woman he loves, who's marrying another. The enchanted vintage makes her hate her husband-to-be. Three great dramas of jealousy and its corrosive effects on the relations between men and women.

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. "It is enough: the power of Salome, By all acknowledged, and by all obeyed, On its firm basis stands immovable: I fled to Azor, with the lightning's speed, Even from Samaria's plain to Jordan's spring, And quick returned: my presence there indeed Was needful,...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. Alzire first appeared on the stage in 1736 to great acclaim and success. Alzire is set Lima, Peru, at the time of the Spanish conquest. Don Gusman, a Spanish grandee, has just succeeded his father, Don Alvarez, in the Governorship of Peru. The rule of Don Alvarez...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. In his preface to this play Voltaire says: "The learned will not here meet with a faithful narrative of Catiline's conspiracy: a tragedy, they very well know, is not a history, but they will see a true picture of the manners of those times: all that Cicero, Catiline,...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. "I don't belong to the house, sir; but I spend most of my time in the coffee-room; write news, politics, and so forth, and am always ready to do an honest gentleman service. If you have any friend you want to have praised, or any enemy to be abused; any author...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. "This comedy is partly imitated from an English piece, called the Plain Dealer. It does not suit very well for the French stage; the manners are too rough and bold, though much less so than in the original. The English seem to take too much liberty, and the French...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. This tragedy is founded on historical truth. A duke of Brittany, in the year 1387, commanded the lord of Bavalan to assassinate the constable of Clisson: Bavalan, the day after, told the duke it was done: the duke becoming sensible of the horror of his crime,...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. "The Chinese tragedy, which they call 'The Orphan,' was taken out of an immense collection of the theatrical performances of that nation, which has cultivated this art for about three thousand years before it was invented by the Greeks, the art of making living...

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. Seventeen of his most notable plays, as well as two novels (one philosophical and one satirical), are presented in this collection.