In a fitted box. Red and grey paper binding with an image of a trial. Gilt title plate on the spine.

It is the intent of F.B.A. to provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this book offered so to almost stimulate your feel and touch on the book. If requested, more traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant, was sentenced to death on the Wheel by the Parliament in Toulouse and executed on March 10^th, 1762, after being convicted of murdering one of his sons who had openly converted to Catholicism.

As soon as he was made aware of the case in March 1762, Voltaire started inquiring. At the time, he was in Ferney, a meeting and taking place. As always, he also wrote extensively to let people know about the case.

« It seems to me that it is in everybody’s interest to look further into this affair which, however you look at it, is the height of fanaticism – “intolerance” is better. Ignoring such a thing is to abandon humanity. »

François-Marie Arouet; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.

Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His polemics witheringly satirized intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.

Brian Masters (born 1939) is a British writer, best known for his biographies of serial killers. He has also written books on French literature, the British aristocracy, and theatre, and has worked as a translator.