"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this "optimism" concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the "all for the best" approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to natural disasters, not to mention the questions of illness and man-made war. Moreover, as the rebel whose satiric genius had earned him not only international acclaim, but two stays in the Bastille, flogging, and exile, Voltaire knew personally what suffering entailed. In Candide he whisks his young hero and friends through a ludicrous variety of tortures, tragedies, and a reversal of fortune, in the company of Pangloss, a "metaphysico-theologo-comolo-nigologist" of unflinching optimism. The result is one of the glories of eighteenth-century satire. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Appearing in 1759, Candide is a foreboding, ironic, and fierce satire. The protagonist, Candide, is an innocent and good-natured man. Virtually all those whom he meets during his travels, however,...
"The story of Candide, a naive youth who is conscripted, shipwrecked, robbed, and tortured by the Inquisition without losing his will to live, is accompanied by four other stories"--NoveList.
Through the adventures of Candide, we experience life's most crushing misfortunes, see the redeeming wisdom those misfortunes can bring — all the while enjoying Voltaire's witty burlesque of human excess.
Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote "Candide" in ridicule of the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a gayer place for readers.
This lively new translation of Voltaire's satiric masterpiece is accompanied by a short selection of writings of each of the most prominent optimists to whom Voltaire was responding -- Leibniz, Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, Pope, Wolff, ...
This new edition of Candide, by Voltaire, with Related Documents continues to preserve the provocative nature of Voltaire's portrayal of eighteenth-century European society while placing the work and its author in historical context.
But this is not so, Candide and his companions encounter nothing but ludicrous calamities in their madcap travels around the world – war crimes, earthquakes, inquisitions and chain gangs – all based with horrible closeness on real ...
This bilingual edition is designed to assist those learning French. The English text appears on the left-hand pages of the book, with the corresponding French on the right-hand pages.
The editor’s introduction situates the novel in its philosophical and intellectual setting; the appendices include other writings by Voltaire, as well as related writings by Bayle, Leibniz, Pope, Rousseau, and others that place the work ...
The novella has never been out of print and has been translated into every conceivable language. The text of this Norton Critical Edition remains that of Robert M. Adams’s superlative translation, accompanied by explanatory annotations.