Description:
<jats:p>Voltaire’s Candide, Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas and the first two volumes of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy appeared in 1759. All three works pursue an agenda of practical scepticism. Textual allusions to the Mille et une Nuit inform the ambivalent pursuit of sceptical reading in these works. Uncovering this hitherto unacknowledged shared source in the Arabian Nights adds new support for readings of these works as critiques of the “ lunacy” of the Seven Years War.</jats:p>