VOLTAIRE! VOLTAIRE! Uncorrected and Unpublished Manuscript in 2 Volumes

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. First edition. Both volumes in stiff printed wrappers, comb bound as issued. The two volumes are in very good condition. 787 leaves, in two volumes, reproducing hundreds of handwritten changes to the original manuscript. This biographical novel traces the parallel lives of Voltaire, "the wittiest, most irreverent, most spectacular philosopher who ever lived," and Rousseau, "the poor, half-educated lad of Geneva who became the most radical, most talked-of philosopher (after Voltaire) of Europe." Endore a Hollywood screenwriter collaborated on scripts like Mark of the Vampire, as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for The Story of G.I. Joe. He also wrote several novels, including Nightmare and King of Paris. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for The Werewolf of Paris, which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for vampire literature. Endore was also a political activist and pamphleteer who became involved in many left-wing and anti-racist causes (notably the "Sleepy Lagoon murder" in Los Angeles in 1940); a member of the Communist Party, he managed to avoid being hauled up before HUAC in the 1950s -- although he was blacklisted nonetheless. This work, Voltaire! Voltaire! has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.