Olympia-2015

The pastedowns are from a manuscript of the late fourteenth or early fifteenthcentury devoted to canon law, written in a formal gothic script. The leaf insidethe front cover concerns simony and the prohibition of buying or sellingecclesiastical offices. The text notices the origin of simony from Symon Magus inActs 8 and refers to his wish to buy with money the gift of the Holy Spirit. The leafon the inside of the back cover discusses whether a son born out of wedlock mayhold a position in the church and comments that the son should not bear the sin ofhis father.CANDIDE: THE EARLIEST STATE OF THE TEXT119. [VOLTAIRE, François Marie Arouet de]. Candide, ou l’Optimisme. Traduitde l’Allemand. De Mr. le Docteur Ralph. [London, J. Nourse,] 1759.8vo, pp. 299, [1]; a very crisp, clean copy copy in contemporary English darkspeckled calf, rear joint restored, spine label wanting. £5000The first London printing of Voltaire’s Candide, preserving the earliest stateof the text.The printing of Candide in 1759 has long been known to present complexbibliographical problems. Documentary evidence survives to show that in January1759 the text of Voltaire’s masterpiece was first set in type in Geneva by theCramers, the publishers of many of his works, and that this setting was carried outwith Voltaire’s direct knowledge and immediate involvement.The present edition is of major textual interest. It contains an extra paragraphin Chapter XXV, beginning ‘Candide était affligé...’. These lines, critical ofcontemporary German poets, have been variously interpreted as an attack on eitherFrederick the Great (Voltaire’s sometime friend and correspondent) or Albrecht vonHaller. Voltaire seems to have withdrawn this passage from the Geneva edition atthe last moment; it was later restored to the revised text of 1761, and appears in alllater editions. Only three 1759 editions contain this paragraph: two printed inLondon and one in Italy. No copy of the Geneva edition is known with this passageintact.This London edition was the work of John Nourse, a printer with provable links toboth the Cramers and to Voltaire himself, and one to whom the Cramers sent asubstantial shipment of books on January 18, 1759, most likely early copies,before Voltaire decided to drop the paragraph in Chapter XXV. This editioncontains one other significant textual feature. On p. 41 are several short sentencesabout the Lisbon earthquake which Voltaire subsequently rewrote.