THEODORE BESTERMAN: A PERSONAL MEMOIR

By Theodore Besterman's death on 10 November 1976 in his seventy-first year, scholarship, bibliography and documentation and a wide range of esoteric subjects have lost a master of near fabulous achievement-how else, to note only two of his works, can one describe the 107 volumes of Voltaire's correspondence which he completed in twelve years as virtually a one-man job, except for the help of an assistant for part of the time provided by the Swiss Foundation for Scientific Research, and the three editions of the World bibliography of bibliographies. To these great solo achievements as a scholar must be added his skill and discrimination as a collector, outstandingly of Voltaire editions and manuscripts and every Voltaire relic which he could procure as the material basis of the publications and activities of the Institut et Museé Voltaire in Geneva which was established solely through Besterman's creative efforts.