Reception
The reception of the Philosophical Dictionary at the time was mixed. On one hand, the book saw a very strong reception on the part of the general public. The first edition was quickly sold out; many more editions were needed to keep up with the demand. Enlightened rulers such as Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia both have been recorded as supporters of the book.
On the other hand, the Philosophical Dictionary was despised by religious authorities, who had a very important influence over what works were to be censored. The Philosophical Dictionary was censored in many countries, including Switzerland (Geneva) and France. In these countries, all available copies of the book were collected and burned in the town square. Voltaire, who remained an anonymous author, was repeatedly asked if he minded that the Portatif was being burned, but he calmly replied that he had no reason to be upset.
Read more about this topic: Dictionnaire Philosophique
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)