Penguin Classics Candide: Or Optimism, (Paperback)

from Jenson_AKA_DL

Young Candide's story begins when a slight interlude with his lordship's daughter is witnessed from behind a screen leading to his butt quite literally being kicked from the household. From such an ignoble beginning we follow Candide through his journey of highs and lows, pains and pleasures, dar...

from tuckerresearch

The best of all possible novellas. An Enlightenment Master basically excoriating the Enlightenment, pointing out that perhaps man isn't all that perfectable. But being a man of the Enlightenment, he makes sure to knock down the Church, wars, governments, and so forth. Perhaps Voltaire was less o...

from LisaMaria_C

Voltaire is a famous philosopher of the Enlightenment, and Candide his most famous work. It's very short, a satiric send-up of Leibniz's theory of optimism through Candide's mentor Dr. Pangloss, who believes we live in "the best of all possible worlds" even in the face of increasingly insane disa...

from Mromano

This short work is the finest example of a sustained literary assault on a philosophical idea; in this case, the idea of Optimism put forth by Leibniz. It was inspired in part by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that claimed up to 100,000 lives, a disaster that did not fit well in the Leibnizian Optimi...

from AshRyan

Voltaire is still recognized as one of history's greatest satirists, and after reading Candide it's not hard to see why. Two and a half centuries later, it still has the power both to amuse and to shock. On the surface, as has often been noted, Candide is obviously a critique of the philosophy of...