GajimaruClassics.
CandideOn the coverAllegory of the 1755 Earthquake, João Glama Ströberle, c. 1760
Candide
The naive young Candide, taught that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” is flung across a globe of earthquakes, wars, and calamities that test the doctrine to destruction, before a final, famous lesson about tending one’s garden. Voltaire’s dazzling satirical fable.
Character notes and context for the chapter you’ve read.
The funniest and most quotable book of the Enlightenment, a breakneck, savage, joyous demolition of easy optimism that you can read in an afternoon and quote for a lifetime.
Enlightenment Europe and a wider world of war, empire, and disaster, which Voltaire tours at speed to skewer the philosophers who insisted, against all evidence, that everything happens for the best.