He was sent to the Bastille prison for writing an offensive poem about an aristocrat. He stayed there for 11 months and wrote his first play, Oedipe, and began to write La Henriade.
1718
He was released from the Bastille. Around that time, he chose the pen name Voltaire. Oedipe was first performed and was very successful.
1722–1723
His father died. Voltaire began working as a secret diplomat for Cardinal Guillaume Dubois. He travelled to Cambrai, Brussels and The Hague. He published his poem La Henriade.
1725
Voltaire was a guest at the wedding of King Louis XV.
1726–1728
He quarrelled with the aristocrat Chevalier de Rohan and was sent to prison at the Bastille. He was exiled to England. In England, Voltaire was recognized as a great writer.
1729
Voltaire returned to Paris.
1732
He published a play called Zaïre.
1733
Voltaire published a collection of essays called Letters on the English Nation. He went to Lorraine to avoid being sent to prison. He went to stay at the Château de Cirey, owned by his friend Émilie du Châtelet.
1735
He was given permission to return to Paris but he chose to stay at Cirey and only returned to Paris occasionally.
1738
Elements of the Philosophy of Newton was published.
1740–1743
Voltaire lived in Prussia and Brussels, where he worked as a diplomat.
1745
King Louis XV made him Royal Historiographer of France.
1746
He was elected to the French Academy.
1748
He published the philosophical tale Zadig.
1749
Émilie du Châtelet died.
1751
Voltaire moved to Potsdam in Germany. He became a philosopher and poet to his close friend, Frederick the Great. He published The Age of Louis XIV.
1752
He published Micromegas.
1753
A conflict began between Voltaire and Maupertuis. Voltaire was forced by Frederick II to leave Berlin and he slowly travelled to Paris.
1754
Louis XV refused to allow Voltaire into the city of Paris. Voltaire moved on to Geneva in Switzerland and bought a large estate named Les Délices. He met the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
1758
He moved to Ferney in France after the local law in Geneva forbade theatre performances. He bought another estate and entertained many important guests at his home.
1759
He published his short story Candide (ou l’Optimisme).
1762
Voltaire began writing letters to Catherine II of Russia.
1763
He published Treatise on Tolerance.
1764
He published one of his most popular philosophical works, Dictionnaire Philosophique.
1767
The philosophical tale L’Ingénu was published.
1769
A new edition of the Philosophical Dictionary was published under the name The Alphabet of Reason.
1770–1772
Questions sur l’Encyclopédie was published in nine books.
1778
Voltaire returned to Paris. He lived to see the performance of his last play, a tragedy called Irène. He died three months later, aged 83.
Writing stories was a way to escape from the ugly, sad, miserable moments in life. Even though much of my work was based on my life experiences and included those difficult parts of it, my novels were also based on my dreams of love and happiness.
I was born on 21st April 1816 in the village of Thornton, in West Yorkshire, England. I had four sisters – two were older than me and two were younger and I had a brother who was born a year after I was. My father, Patrick, was an Anglican vicar and my mother, Maria Branwell, was kept busy looking after her family. When I was 4 years old, we moved to a village not far away called Haworth, where my father had been given the position of curate at the village church. My mother had been unwell for some time and a year later, she died. We were looked after by her sister, who we called Aunt Branwell but whose name was Elizabeth.
My father, who was still very upset by my mother’s death, had difficulty coping with us all. In 1824, he sent me and three of my sisters – Maria, Elizabeth and Emily – to a school, the Clergy Daughters School, that was for daughters of Anglican church employees. Maria, who was 10 years old, and Elizabeth, at the age of 9, went there first in July. Then, in September, my father sent me and Emily. I was 8 and Emily was only 6 years old. My other sister, Anne, and my brother, Branwell, stayed at home.
The school was in a village called Cowan Bridge in the neighbouring county of Lancashire. None of the girls’ parents had to pay for their daughters to go to this school – all the expenses were paid by the church – and for this reason, we were called Charity Children by the teachers and the other people who worked there. It was horrible and made us feel ashamed
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