This manuscript is a copy of Voltaire’s play Alamire by two hands.
Detailed Summary:
Alamire is a tragedy in five acts and the fourth version of Voltaire’s tragedy Adélaïde du Guèsclin. Voltaire, disappointed by the lukewarm reception of his Adélaïde du Guèsclin, which was only performed eleven times in Paris in 1734, 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
Date:
[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)