With the completion of this 205-volume edition of Voltaire’s works, the Voltaire Foundation has decided to embark on a new and extremely challenging project: Digital Enlightenment.
In 2019, the Voltaire Foundation received a generous research grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the preliminary phase of Digital Scholarly Editions of the European Enlightenment (Digital Enlightenment). Digital Enlightenment is an online platform for the creation and dissemination of digital scholarly editions of eighteenth-century texts. As a pilot for Digital Enlightenment, researchers at the Voltaire Foundation are currently working on two projects: the digitisation of the Oxford edition of Voltaire’s complete works, Digital Voltaire, and a born-digital critical edition of the works of Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach – Digital d’Holbach.
Building on the Voltaire Foundation’s existing expertise in producing print critical editions, this ongoing project explores the challenges of producing high-quality scholarly editions digitally.
“These editions will set a benchmark for best practice in the field, and promote a revaluation of the digital critical edition,” says Professor Nicholas Cronk, Director of the Voltaire Foundation. “The long-term aim of Digital Enlightenment is to create a digital resource containing definitive and interconnected scholarly editions that will have a transformative effect in Enlightenment studies.”
