Besterman, Theodore

Voltaire's Resurrector-Theodore Besterman
by William B. Lindley

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If you want to know more about Voltaire, sooner or later you will run across Theodore Besterman. Better sooner than later. He is perhaps best known to Voltaire enthusiasts through his massive biography of Voltaire, the third edition of which came out in the last year of the author's life.

But Besterman is far more important to our knowledge and appreciation of Voltaire than one biography would show. Besterman was, first and foremost, a biblio-grapher, perhaps the leading bibliographer of the 20th century. But what connection would such a dry and scholarly profession as bibliography have with such a lively figure as Voltaire? The answer is easy. Voltaire is now known to us only through his writings and through the writings of others who knew him and his period. His literary output was huge (as Besterman puts it: "About fifteen million of Voltaire's written words have come down to us, enough to make twenty Bibles."), and was as diverse as his interests; it had been worked over by so many different scholars with so many different axes to grind that, frankly, the situation was a mess. Along came Besterman, a brilliant mind, an established reputation as a leading bibliographer, a low tolerance for technical and moral error, and an enthusiasm for Voltaire that wouldn't quit.

In 1951 Besterman made an agreement with authorities in Geneva; he donated his Voltaire collection, while they renovated Voltaire's former residence "Les Délices" and converted it into a research center for Voltaire scholars. Thus began a huge new wave of Voltaire scholarship. Voltaire's notebooks were published in 1952; a new edition of his letters started publication in 1953, continuing for twelve years; Besterman began the periodical Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, which is over 200 volumes and counting. In 1965, Besterman left Les Délices after a dispute with the Geneva authorities (a curious replay of Voltaire's departure from the same place), and set up shop at Oxford. There he created the Voltaire Foundation and took up where he left off, continuing to engage in and to promote Voltaire scholarship. A critical edition of Voltaire's Complete Works was begun there in 1968, is still in process, and it may be some decades before it is published in its entirety. Besterman arranged, financially and organizationally, to have the work go on after his death.

David Williams, in his "Theodore Besterman and the Resurrection of Voltaire," writes: "Voltaire... is much more to Besterman than a specialized extension of his bibliographical investigations.... Voltaire represents the repository of the highest qualities of the civilized mind in its quest for truth and justice, the quintessence of all that is worth preserving and emulating in Western culture."

This last summer, Lawrence True, Chairman of the Board of Truth Seeker Co., traveled to England. While there, he visited the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford, where they were busy preparing a tercentenary congress, scheduled for late September and early October. Among other treasures, Mr. True was given an excellent book on Besterman by Francesco Cordasco, from which most of the facts in this article are taken. We owe special thanks to Andrew Brown, Executive Director of the Foundation, for his hospitality to Mr. True.

William Lindley is the Associate Editor of the Truth Seeker.

Brief von Bestermann
Besterman expresses his thanks to James Mack, Lehigh librarian, for sending him a photocopy of the Voltaire letter in Lehigh's collection.