Œuvres complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance (années 1711-1776, nos. 1-9750) 1880-1882

This collection represents the monumental editorial effort of Louis Moland, who compiled the complete works of Voltaire for the publisher Garnier Frères during the late nineteenth century. The project was intended to serve as the definitive scholarly reference for Voltaire's vast body of work, consolidating thousands of letters that had previously been scattered across various archives and private collections. By assembling this correspondence, which spans the years 1711 to 1776, Moland provided researchers with an essential primary source for understanding the intellectual landscape of the French Enlightenment.

The design of the 1880-1882 volumes reflects the standard of French academic publishing of the Third Republic, characterized by a formal, serious aesthetic intended for libraries and scholars. Moland's editorial methodology was highly regarded at the time for its rigor in dating and organizing Voltaire's extensive network of letters. While modern scholarship has since expanded upon the chronology and discovered additional correspondence, these volumes remain a cornerstone of Enlightenment studies and a testament to the nineteenth-century ambition to canonize the work of one of history’s most prolific epistolary writers.