This manuscript is a copy of Voltaire’s play Alamire in two hands.
Detailed Summary:
Alamire, a tragedy in five acts, is the fourth version of Voltaire’s play Adélaïde du Guèsclin. Disappointed by the lukewarm reception of the original, which was performed only eleven times in Paris in 1734, Voltaire revised the tragedy three times in 1751. Alamire is the fourth and final version. The interest of this manuscript lies not so much in the light it sheds on a definitive state of Alamire as in the glimpse it gives us of a rough copy of a play by Voltaire.
The manuscript is bound with other documents in contemporary red morocco.
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The MS is a copy by two hands with autographic corrections; endorsed by Wagnière in the top left-hand corner of the frst page ‘Ancien origina d’Adélaïde du Guesclin ou Frères ennemis’. Large sections of the text have few alterations, but there are other places where Voltaire was much less decided as to which version he wished to adopt. He changed his mind adding lines upon lines already altered either by himself or dictated to a secretary.
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History
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[1751]
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Bibliography
Bibliography:
Fernand Caussy, Inventaire des manuscrits de la bibliothèque de Voltaire conservée à la bibliothèque impériale publique de Saint-Pétersbourg (Geneva, Slatkine reprints, 1970)