Be Welcome!

Y ou too?   You also say : Oh, I did not know that his name was “Jean” (John) !   Indeed, our dear “Voltaire” does not bear the name “Jean”, he wasn't even named “Voltaire.”   His real name was actually “François Marie Arouet” and “Voltaire” was his pen name.

The publishing name “Jean Voltaire” comes from the combination of my first name with the one of my father.   My father is called “Jan” first name, “Jean” in French, then mine, “Wolter”, is pronounced something like “Voltaire” in French.   The name “Jean Voltaire” is thus a variant of my own name and paying tribute to my father, adding the French version of his name before mine.   I also wanted to pay tribute to François-Marie Arouet, better known as “Voltaire”, using his pen name as an alternative for my first name.   Although I may write French as well as he Dutch.

The company name “Éditions Jean Voltaire” served me up to the first of July 2009 to legally distribute the books in self-publishing with bookstores, boutiques and other media outlets.   Don't get mistaken, because the law is quite clear on this point, if you manufacture your own books with the aim of selling them making a profit, you are not considered as an author, but you are accordingly subject to laws dealing with traders, BIC here in France.   (Home business)   I had to officially close this sales because the charges and taxes had, despite the beautiful formulas of our dear government, largely exceeded the revenue.   I don't sell at the moment, as the law allows me to do so, other than my books at actual production cost.

François-Marie Arouet Le Jeune, Voltaire said later, was officially born on 21 November 1694 in Paris, and baptized the next day, in a family of the rich bourgeoisie of Paris.   On several occasions he says in reality be born nine months earlier on 20 February 1694: baptism was delayed because of the little hope of survival.   His parents were François Arouet, a notary and spices Receiver to the Court of Auditors and Marie Marguerite d'Aumart, a family of nobility of the robe.   His older brother will be a Jansenist sympathizer.   Because of its spirit, its relations libertines and especially of his vocation as a poet, he has difficult relations with his father.   Cause or consequence of this enmity, Voltaire has repeatedly said the son of a Mr Rochebrune “musketeer, officer, author.”   Voltaire, whose life and work, inextricably linked, closely married to his century, is a complex and contradictory celebrated of his time as poet and tragedian, today we read his writings mainly philosophical prose (stories, letters and philosophy philosophical dictionary).   Often seen (with its eternal enemy Rousseau) as a precursor of the thinkers of the French Revolution, he attended the Great monarchs courted and not hide his disdain for the people.   Apostle of tolerance, it persists in acrimonious controversy. And sickly hypochondriac, it always shone through his energy and alertness.

For more information concerning “Voltaire”, see "Wikipédia".