Candide (Summarized Edition)

Candide is Voltaire's brisk conte philosophique, a picaresque cascade of catastrophes that skewers Leibnizian optimism through irony. Following the guileless Candide, his tutor Pangloss, and the resilient Cunégonde across war-torn Europe, earthquake-shaken Lisbon, Jesuit Paraguay, and the mirage of Eldorado, the tale layers farce upon atrocity—shipwrecks, auto-da-fé, enslavements—until the counsel...