The Calas Affair

Published in 1763 as a treatise on toleration, this work takes up the case of Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant of Toulouse broken on the wheel after being accused of killing his son to prevent a conversion to Catholicism. Voltaire recounts the trial, the role of the crowd and local magistrates, and the silence of evidence, then widens the argument to freedom of conscience and the damage done by religious zeal in law. Historical examples of persecution support the plea. The book is a forensic pamphlet and essay, not a novel of the Calas family.

Bound in grey vegetable parchment with a contemporary etching in red. Dark red endleaves. Dark red slipcase.