Voltaire by Alfred Noyes

Author Voltaire wrote the satirical novella Candide and, despite controversy during his lifetime, is widely considered one of France’s greatest Enlightenment writers. Alfred Noyes CBE was an English poet, short-story writer and playwright, best known for his ballads, “The Highwayman” and “The Barrel-Organ”.

His name is synonymous with the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, the tumultuous era when Western people gained the right to think independently, to follow the revelations of science, and to question religious dogmas without being executed or jailed for it.

After attaining fame and wealth as a witty writer, Voltaire became a fierce crusader against cruelties of the church and the aristocracy. He roused international outcries in behalf of victims killed or jailed for their religious beliefs. In a sense, Voltaire was the modern world’s first civil rights activist. His demands for freedom of speech and of worship spread across the Atlantic and helped formulate America’s budding democracy.