This volume, which takes account of the latest scholarship, consists of an introduction to Voltaire and to Candide, the French text and textual notes, and a short bibliography.

The authors of the fifteen essays that make up this volume were invited to interpret 'Myth and its Making' in the widest possible sense. They were encouraged to re-examine not only the time-honoured ancient themes exploited in the French theatre from the Renaissance onwards, but other literary, historical or legendary subjects that have undergone a similar process of mythic enhancement and stylisation. Thus they explored the ways in which existing literary myths renewed themselves, as well as the process of creating new myths for the modern age. Originally published in 1988, the text contains...