Jean Meslier

Testament: a Priest's Dying Confession Jean Meslier

Brief Description: First English Translation of the Complete Work. A forerunner of later critiques of religion, a methodical deconstruction of Christianity and the governments that support it and defends the human rights of liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness. Publisher Marketing: Beginning in 1689, Jean Meslier worked for around forty years as the priest of the small town of Etripigny, France. When he died, his parishioners were astonished to find his last testament to them: a refutation of every religious doctrine he had advocated in life. This is the testament, with preface by Voltaire, who exhorted his own daughter to read it again and again. The Godless Heritage Series is a project dedicated to bringing hard-to-find works of atheist and secularist history back into print in an accessible way. Our goal is to bring back works that allow us to rediscover the lives of atheists, agnostics, and secularists from across cultures and through the ages. Review Citations:

Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2010 pg. 18 (EAN 9781591027492, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Voltaire Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694--1778) was one of the key thinkers of the European Enlightenment. Of his many works, "Candide" remains the most popular. Peter Constantine was awarded the 1998 PEN Translation Award for "Six Early Stories "by Thomas Mann and the 1999 National Translation Award for "The Undiscovered Chekhov: Forty-three New Stories." Widely acclaimed for his recent translation of the complete works of Isaac Babel, he also translated Gogol's "Taras Bulba" and Tolstoy's "The Cossacks "for the Modern Library. His translations of fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications, including "The New Yorker, Harper's," and "Paris Review. "He lives in New York City.