| Candide: or, Optimism Contributor(s): Voltaire (Author), Constantine, Peter (Translator), Johnson, Diane (Introduction by) |
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ISBN: 0812972015 ISBN-13: 9780812972016 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group OUR PRICE: $17.10 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2005 Annotation: A flamboyant and controversial personality of enormous wit and intelligence, Voltaire remains one of the most influential figures of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. "Candide, his masterpiece, is a brilliant satire of the theory that our world is "the best of all possible worlds." The book traces the picaresque adventures of the guileless Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunegonde, tortured by the Inquisition, et cetera, all without losing his resilience and will to live and pursue a happy life. This Modern Library edition, published to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House, is a facsimile of the first book ever released under the Random House colophon. It includes the timeless illustrations by Rockwell Kent, a twentieth-century artist whose wit and genius serve as a counterpart and compliment to Voltaire's. "From the Hardcover edition. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Classics - Fiction | Psychological - Fiction | Satire |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Series: Modern Library Classics (Paperback) |
| Physical Information: 0.33" H x 5.23" W x 8.01" (0.25 lbs) 144 pages |
| Accelerated Reader Info |
| Quiz #: 28450 Reading Level: 7.3 Interest Level: Upper Grades Point Value: 5.0 |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In this splendid new translation of Voltaire's satiric masterpiece, all the celebrated wit, irony, and trenchant social commentary of one of the great works of the Enlightenment is restored and refreshed. Voltaire may have cast a jaundiced eye on eighteenth-century Europe-a place that was definitely not the "best of all possible worlds." But amid its decadent society, despotic rulers, civil and religious wars, and other ills, Voltaire found a mother lode of comic material. And this is why Peter Constantine's thoughtful translation is such a pleasure, presenting all the book's subtlety and ribald joys precisely as Voltaire had intended. The globe-trotting misadventures of the youthful Candide; his tutor, Dr. Pangloss; Martin, and the exceptionally trouble-prone object of Candide's affections, Cun gonde, as they brave exile, destitution, cannibals, and numerous deprivation, provoke both belly laughs and deep contemplation about the roles of hope and suffering in human life. The transformation of Candide's outlook from panglossian optimism to realism neatly lays out Voltaire's philosophy-that even in Utopia, life is less about happiness than survival-but not before providing us with one of literature's great and rare pleasures. |