Candide

Voltaire's biting satirical masterpiece follows the naive young Candide, raised to believe—on the authority of his tutor Dr. Pangloss—that they live in 'the best of all possible worlds.' Expelled from his sheltered home, Candide is hurled into a world of war, earthquakes, slavery, betrayal, and disaster, his sunny optimism tested at every brutal turn. With savage wit and breakneck pace, Voltaire skewers philosophical complacency, religious hypocrisy, and human cruelty, before arriving at the famous, hard-won conclusion that 'we must cultivate our garden.' One of the sharpest and most enduring works of the Enlightenment. A Raven's Gate Classics edition with luminous new cover art.