Candide

Candide, or Optimism is Voltaire's satire on the philosophical optimism of his day, first published in seventeen fifty-nine. The young Candide is brought up in a sheltered household and taught by his tutor Pangloss that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, a doctrine drawn from Leibniz. Expelled from that shelter, he is carried through war, shipwreck, the Lisbon earthquake, the Inquisition, servitude in Surinam and the imagined golden country of Eldorado, and at every turn the doctrine is set against what actually happens to him and to those he meets. The tone is quick, bitter and matter of fact, and the form parodies the adventure and romance conventions of the period. Voltaire's targets are wide, taking in the optimistic philosophy itself, the churches and theologians, governments, armies and the conduct of the great. The book does not end in despair. Its closing formula, that we must cultivate our garden, sets modest and practical work in place of grand metaphysical consolation, and that precept is what the satire leaves the reader with.

Written from the wikipedia article on the book.

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