Candide

Voltaire

Kessinger Publishing, Jun 30, 2004 - Fiction - 100 pages

Candide is about a man who believes in the philosophy that: "what happens, happens for the best in the end." that was taught to him by his personal philosopher Dr. Panlosss. Candide goes through many, many trials and everyone he meets has had something terrible happen to them. He searches the world over for his love Cundgonde. And in the end finds that the simplest things in life: love, friends, and health are all that matters.

What people are saying

User Review -

One of the best books I've ever read

User Review -

Yo lo tengo y es muy buen libro enserio Voltaire fue un gran escritor de la época de la ilustración.

Popular passages

Page 95 - Pacquette embroidered ; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to Brother Giroflee, but did some service; he was a very good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and then to say to Candide, "There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund ; had you not been put into the Inquisition ; had you not...‎

About the author

A leading freethinker of his time and an opponent of political and religious oppression, Voltaire was instrumental in popularizing serious philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas that were frequently derived from liberal thinkers in England, where he lived for two years after his imprisonment in the Bastille. Voltaire's writings are wide ranging: He wrote plays in the neoclassic style, such as Oedipus (1718), philosophical essays in a popular vein like Letters on England (1734), which has been referred to as the first bomb hurled against the Ancien Regime; and the Philosophical Dictionary (1764), a catalog of polemical ideas on a large variety of subjects, particularly religion and philosophy. Voltaire was one of the most prolific letter writers in the entire history of literature, and his correspondence has been published in a French edition of 107 volumes. For the twentieth-century reader, Voltaire is best known for his philosophical tale Candide (1759), a masterpiece of satire that is both an attack on the philosophy of metaphysical optimism elaborated earlier in the century by the German philosopher Leibniz and a compendium of the abuses of the Ancien Regime as the author ponders the general problem of evil. Voltaire's unflinching belief in human reason and his easy handling of the language of Enlightenment wit and philosophy led the critic Roland Barthes to dub him "the last happy writer.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Candide; Kessinger Publishing's rare reprints
• Author: Voltaire
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, 2004
• ISBN: 1419111817, 9781419111815
• Length: 100 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary