Candide Or Optimism

by Voltaire, Francois; Butt, John; Butt, John

• ISBN13: 9780140440041
• ISBN10: 0140440046
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781101549742
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1950-06-30
• Publisher: PENGUIN
• More Book Details

Summary

Social satire about a young man who believes, despite much evidence to the contrary, that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".

Author Biography

François-Marie Arouet, writing under the pseudonym Voltaire, was born in 1694 into a Parisian bourgeois family. Educated by Jesuits, he was an excellent pupil but one quickly enraged by dogma. An early rift with his father—who wished him to study law—led to his choice of letters as a career. Insinuating himself into court circles, he became notorious for lampoons on leading notables and was twice imprisoned in the Bastille.

By his mid-thirties his literary activities precipitated a four-year exile in England where he won the praise of Swift and Pope for his political tracts. His publication, three years later in France, of Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1733)—an attack on French Church and State—forced him to flee again. For twenty years Voltaire lived chiefly away from Paris. In this, his most prolific period, he wrote such satirical tales as “Zadig” (1747) and “Candide” (1759). His old age at Ferney, outside Geneva, was made bright by his adopted daughter, “Belle et Bonne,” and marked by his intercessions in behalf of victims of political injustice. Sharp-witted and lean in his white wig, impatient with all appropriate rituals, he died in Paris in 1778—the foremost French author of his day.

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(12)
Candide or Optimism
How Candide was brought up in a beautiful country house, and how he was driven away	19	(3)
What happened to Candide amongst the Bulgars	22	(3)
How Candide escaped from the Bulgars, and what happened to him afterwards	25	(3)
How Candide met his old tutor, Dr. Pangloss, and what came of it	28	(4)
Describing tempest, shipwreck, and earthquake, and what happened to Dr. Pangloss, Candide, and James, the Anabaptist	32	(4)
How a magnificent auto-da-fe was staged to prevent further earthquakes, and how Candide was flogged	36	(1)
How an old woman took care of Candide, and how he found the lady he loved	37	(3)
Cunegonde's story	40	(4)
Relating further adventures of Cunegonde, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew	44	(2)
Describing the distressing circumstances in which Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman reached Cadiz, and how they set sail for the new world	46	(3)
The old woman's story	49	(4)
The old woman's misfortunes continued	53	(5)
How Candide was forced to leave the lovely Cunegonde and the old woman	58	(3)
The reception Candide and Cacambo met with from the Jesuits of Paraguay	61	(4)
How Candide killed the brother of his beloved Cunegonde	65	(3)
The adventures of our two travellers with two girls and two monkeys, and what happened to them amongst the savage Oreillons	68	(5)
How Candide and his servant reached the country of Eldorado and what they saw there	73	(4)
What they saw in the country of Eldorado	77	(7)
What happened to them at Surinam, and how Candide made the acquaintance of Martin	84	(7)
What happened to Candide and Martin at sea	91	(3)
What Candide and Martin discussed as they approached the coast of France	94	(2)
What happened to Candide and Martin in France	96	(14)
Candide and Martin reach the coast of England, and what they see there	110	(2)
About Pacquette and Brother Giroflee	112	(6)
A visit to Count Pococurante, a noble Venetian	118	(6)
How Candide and Martin supped with six strangers, and who they were	124	(4)
Candide's journey to Constantinople	128	(5)
What happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, and the rest	133	(4)
How Candide found Cunegonde and the old woman once more	137	(1)
Conclusion	138