La Pucelle d'Orléans, poëme, divisé en vingt chants, Avec des notes & figures. Nouvelle édition, corrigée, augmentée & collationée sur les manuscrits de l'auteur.

[Geneva]: 1762. [The first authorised edition]. Octavo, contemporary full leather, gilt-stamped spine. 358 pp. With the half title and all 20 full-page plates by Gravelot.


The preface notes that Voltaire began writing this work in 1730. Pirated editions began appearing in 1755, and between 1755 and this 1762 edition, more than twenty pirated editions had appeared, attesting to the popularity of this sometimes risque epic. Voltaire, in reaction to the various piracies and inaccurate texts, completely revised his early manuscript, adding five new cantos and rewriting the entire final canto. These alterations, as well as the fine, unsigned Gravelot plates, the important prefatory essay and the notes and commentary, all appear here for the first time, thus the present edition is of major textual importance. Lewine 558.


Voltaire was undoubtedly one of the most controversial writers and philosophers of the Enlightenment Age, and The Maid of Orleans was also certainly one of his more contentious works. An epic and scandalous satire concerning the life of the not-yet-canonised Joan of Arc ("the Maid of Orleans"), the poem was outlawed, burned and banned throughout a great portion of Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Containing mockery and satirical commentary on the life and antics of its subject, the poem itself has variously been described as "bawdy" and "licentious". (5950)

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