Diderot 8w32r5659

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
PART I: THE TESTING YEARS
Prologue (page 3)
1. Diderot's Family and Early Childhood (page 9)
2. Diderot Becomes an Abbé and Goes to Paris (page 20)
3. Clandestine Marriage (page 37)
4. First Fruits (page 47)
5. The Emerging Philosophe (page 59)
6. The Early History of the Encyclopédie (page 73)
7. Two Very Different Books (page 83)
8. Letter on the Blind (page 92)
9. Diderot in Prison (page 103)
10. The Prospectus of the Encyclopédie, and Letter on the Deaf and Dumb (page 117)
11. What Readers Found in Volume I of the Encyclopédie (page 130)
12. 'Up till Now, Hell Has Vomited its Venom Drop by Drop' (page 150)
13. The Encyclopédie Recontinued (page 161)
14. Italian Opera and French Taste (page 173)
15. Diderot's Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (page 187)
16. 'Man is Born To Think for Himself' (page 199)
17. Business and Pleasure: A New Contract, Mme Geoffrin's Salon, Sophie Volland (page 218)
18. 'Changing the General Way of Thinking' (page 232)
19. Growing Tension with Rousseau: 'Only the Bad Man Lives Alone' (page 247)
20. How to Write a Play: Example and Precept (page 260)
21. Rising Opposition; D'Alembert's Blunder in Volume VII (page 275)
22. 'I Used To Have an Aristarchus . . . I Wish To Have Him No Longer' (page 291)
23. Signs and Portents of Approaching Eclipse (page 307)
24. Le Père de Famille and the 'Discourse on Dramatic Poetry' (page 322)
25. The Death of the Phoenix (page 332)
EPILOGUE (page 343)
PART II: THE APPEAL TO POSTERITY, 1759-1784
Taking Stock (page 349)
27. Second Wind (page 358)
28. Grandval (page 372)
29. The Nun's Story (La Religieuse (page 382)
30. 'That Tartuffe of a Diderot' (page 392)
331. Le Père de famille at the Comédie-Française (page 403)
32. Frustration, Self-assertion, and Wistfulness (page 414)
33. Concern for the Public Welfare (page 430)
34. Diderot Sells His Library (page 449)
35. Perfidy Where Least Expected (page 468)
36. Private Life and Public Alarms (page 492)
37. Diderot, Falconet, and Catherine II (page 507)
38. Diderot as Critic and Philosopher of Art (page 522)
39. 'It Is Really Bizarre the Variety of Roles I Play in This World' (page 542)
40. Le Rêve de d'Alembert (1769) (page 557)
41. A Disturbing Involvement and Its Literary Effects (page 571)
42. 'I No Longer Have a Child, I Am Alone, and My Solitude Is Unbearable' (page 594)
43. First Visit to Holland and the Paradoxe sur le comédien (page 618)
44. Diderot in Russia (page 629)
45. Return to the West (page 646)
46. Ethical Doctrine: Determinism and Humanism (page 659)
47. Indian Summer (page 674)
48. Last Writings, Ill Health, and Death (page 694)
EPILOGUE: The Appeal to Posterity (page 714)
List of Abbreviations (page 719)
Notes (page 723)
Bibliography (page 885)
A Survey of Publications Since 1957 on Diderot's Early Years (page 890)
Emendations to The Testing Years (page 893)
Index (page 895)