The sub-series consists of records relating to John Ralston Saul's book of public philosophy, Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, including drafts of the manuscript, research material, editorial correspondence, promotional material, and reviews. It was published in 1992 by the Free Press in the United States, Sinclair-Stevenson in the UK, and Penguin Books in Canada and Australia, followed by Éditions Payot in France in 1993, and subsequent editions in other languages. The sub-series holds an extensive selection of drafts of the manuscript, including editorial annotations by Adam Bellow of the Free Press and others, and correspondence with Bellow and agent Robin Strauss discussing the structure of the book and particular chapters. The drafts culminate in the final typed draft and the French draft. Saul's research files show Voltaire's Bastards' central themes, including elite education, money, individualism, art, inflation, Third World debt, bureaucracy, nuclear science, and the Gulf War, among other issues. There are also notes of corrections and changes for revised editions.
The publishers' efforts to promote Voltaire's Bastards and its public reception are also documented in this sub-series. Promotional material includes news releases, a poster, ads, cover designs, excerpts for publication, and bestseller lists. Reader and fan mail shows its international impact, including letters from Michel Rocard, Ann Landers, and Margaret Atwood, among others. Voltaire's Bastards was widely reviewed - the reviews are grouped geographically for Europe, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. In Canada, there are reviews and articles about the book by Philip Marchand, Richard Gwyn, John Bemrose, George Woodcock, and Ken McGoogan. Notable American reviews included the review in Washington Post by Camille Paglia. Other international reviews and articles appeared in The Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Economist (United Kingdom); Nouvelle Économiste, Le Monde, Elle (France), La Voce, Il Messagero (Italy), Tribune de Genève (Switzerland), Le Soir (Belgium), Diario Pagina (Argentina), Diario el Mercurio (Chile), among others.
