in 1778 as Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (Philosophical Letters on the English). Most modern English editions are based on the one from 1734 and typically use the title Philosophical Letters, a direct translation of that version's title.

In some ways, the book can be compared with Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, in how it flatteringly explains a nation to itself from the perspective of an outsider, as Voltaire's depictions