Volney: 'The Ruins' and 'Catechism of Natural Law'

Colin Kidd is Wardlaw Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. Brought up in the west of Scotland, he was educated at Cambridge, Harvard and Oxford, where he was a Fellow of All Souls between 1987 and 1994, and again from 2005 to 2019. He has been a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, New Statesman and Guardian. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and was awarded an OBE in the 2023 New Year Honours List. Lucy Kidd is a former writer, who published three romantic novels, one historical, earlier in her career. Born in the United States, she was educated at Harvard University and the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier. More recently, she has worked in Scotland in the TEFL/TESL sector. Her interests are in music, literature and modern languages.

• Translators' preface; Introduction; Chronology of Volney's life; Further reading; Biographical notes; The Ruins; Catechism of Natural Law; Appendix I. Volney's endnotes and sources; Appendix II. Volney's Black Egyptianist passages; Appendix III. Significant textual variants; Index.