In this fresh exploration of eighteenth-century French writing, John Leigh celebrates the ideas and hopes that animated its central figures and examines the extent to which authors—and their readers—shouldered heretofore-unknown responsibilities and confronted new doubts.

Leigh paints a picture of a tumultuous age that was at once confident and introspective, insouciant and restless. Examining why and how they wrote, Leigh sees eighteenth-century authors as not only subscribing to the potential of reason and promise of progress, but using their creative verve to express frustration and disappointment. Enlightenment, he argues, can be envisioned in many competing ways.

The book identifies the key works of political protest, philosophical exploration, and religious enquiry, and at the same time encompasses such diverse forms as the novel, short story, poetry, and drama. Conveying a vivid sense of the energy and genius of the Enlightenment as embodied in its famous and controversial writers—Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau—the author also considers the achievements of influential but unsung authors such as Mabillon, Olympe de Gouges, Chénier, and de Sade.