Mason, Haydn Trevor

Voltaire : a biography by Haydn Trevor Mason ( Book )
24 editions published between 1975 and 1988 in English and Spanish and held by 1,559 libraries worldwide

Candide : optimism demolished by Haydn Trevor Mason ( Book )
6 editions published in 1992 in English and Undetermined and held by 769 libraries worldwide
Candide came into being largely because of Voltaire's great dissatisfaction with the explanation for the problem of evil and human suffering provided by the philosophers of his day. Published in 1759 when Voltaire was 65, Candide was a direct attack on the school of optimism championed by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and English poet Alexander Pope and popularized in the adventure and romance novels of the period. Optimism, Voltaire's young hero, Candide, asserts, is "the mania for asserting that all is well when one is not." The danger of optimism, Voltaire believed, lies in its essentially passive response to life. If God has given human beings "the best of all possible worlds," as Leibniz claimed, and if everything that happens is somehow for the best, then to what point is human choice and action?

The Leibniz-Arnauld correspondence by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ( Book )
10 editions published between 1967 and 1985 in English and held by 564 libraries worldwide

French writers and their society, 1715-1800 by Haydn Trevor Mason ( Book )
7 editions published in 1982 in English and held by 507 libraries worldwide

Pierre Bayle and Voltaire by Haydn Trevor Mason ( Book )
9 editions published between 1960 and 1963 in English and held by 498 libraries worldwide

The impact of the French Revolution on European consciousness ( Book )
5 editions published in 1989 in English and held by 286 libraries worldwide

The Darnton debate : books and revolution in the eighteenth century ( Book )
12 editions published between 1998 and 1999 in English and French and held by 269 libraries worldwide

Zadig and other stories by Voltaire ( Book )
3 editions published between 1971 and 1974 in French and English and held by 222 libraries worldwide

Pour encourager les autres : studies for the tercentenary of Voltaire's birth, 1694-1994 ( Book )
7 editions published in 1994 in French and English and held by 195 libraries worldwide

The secular city : studies in the Enlightenment : presented to Haydn Mason ( Book )
3 editions published in 1994 in English and Multiple languages and held by 187 libraries worldwide