A "bold atheist", a "renowned glutton", an "enemy of all doctors", a "mad imagination", an "overly joyful man", a purveyor of "incoherent lunacy" -- and that's just what Voltaire thought about him. Several times made a refugee for his writings, a man who stood alone against both Christianity and the medical establishment, La Mettrie is a lost icon of free speech and moral courage. Instead, both during his life and for generations after death, La Mettrie became the iconic "bad atheist" - a favorite target of Christian apologists, but also "the whipping-boy of French materialism" who was definitively rejected by the leading philosophes.This collection, which contains new or first-ever translations of over a dozen historical texts, offers a second opinion on a man who was far ahead of his time: a brilliant theorist of materialism, teacher of a life-affirming hedonism, and a forerunner of Nietzsche.Table of contents:INTRODUCTIONLA METTRIE'S CHRONOLOGYEULOGIZED BY A KING-A EULOGY FOR LA METTRIEIN HIS OWN WORDS: LA METTRIE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHIES-PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE-A RESPONSE TO A LIBEL AGAINST THE AUTHOR,-PLEASURE IS PROPHYLACTIC-WRITING HOME FROM EXILEA "PERSECUTED PHILOSOPHER" IN THE PRUSSIAN COURT-FROM THE KING TO MAUPERTUIS-FROM MAUPERTUIS TO THE KING-FROM THE KING TO MAUPERTUIS.-LA METTRIE'S LETTER OF INTRODUCTION AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT-FROM THE KING TO MAUPERTUIS-FROM MAUPERTUIS TO THE KING-LA METTRIE IN VOLTAIRE'S CORRESPONDENCEDISSECTING THE LATE LA METTRIE: POST-MORTEM DEPOSITIONS-A LETTER FROM KING FREDERICK TO HIS SISTER WILHELMINE-THE HALLER-MAUPERTUIS EXCHANGE-A SYMPATHETIC LETTER FROM A FRIEND AT COURT-DIDEROT ATTACKS LA METTRIE-D'ARGENS "SACRIFICES" LA METTRIEAN ANECDOTAL ATHEIST:-AT EASE WITH THE KING-A RIDICULOUS MATERIALIST IN THE COURT-ANECDOTES FROM THE COURT