Voltaire (1694-1778) was a French man of letters and a leading figure of the Enlightenment, known for his outspokenness and polemical writings. The philosophical novellas Candide and Zadig are among his most celebrated works.

Micromegas is a six-hundred-and-fifty-year-old, thirty-nine-kilometre-high giant from the planet Sirius who can speak a thousand languages and has been expelled from his homeland for writing a heretical tract. On Saturn he befriends the local secretary of the Academy of Sciences - a comparative dwarf, being only two kilometres high - and the two decide to travel to earth together, where they will make startling discoveries about human nature.

At once a story-length Bildungsroman and a philosophical tale, 'Micromegas' is a classic Enlightenment text, and is accompanied in this volume by thirteen other pieces - including 'Plato's Dream' and 'Memnon' - all in a new translation by acclaimed French specialist Douglas Parmée.

Voltaire will always be regarded as the biggest name of recent literature, and perhaps throughout all the centuries.

This welcome selection of fourteen of the lesser-known fables and parables comes in a wonderfully loose-limbed and unstuffy translation which shows both Voltaire - and the late Douglas Parmée - on top form.