Candide

In this witty political satire, a gentle man plagued by misfortune who clings to the belief that "all is for the best," Voltaire mocks the "eternal optimist" philosophy of his day that proclaimed human and natural disasters are a part of a larger cosmic plan.

Library Journal

Two standards of European literature join Penguin's Classics Deluxe Editions club. Candide sports an especially spiffy cover by comic artist Chris Ware and a top text. The Undset volume combines all three parts of the epic with explanatory notes. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) was one of the key thinkers of the European Enlightenment. Of his many works, "Candide" remains the most popular.
Peter Constantine was awarded the 1998 PEN Translation Award for "Six Early Stories "by Thomas Mann and the 1999 National Translation Award for "The Undiscovered Chekhov: Forty-three New Stories." Widely acclaimed for his recent translation of the complete works of Isaac Babel, he also translated Gogol's "Taras Bulba" and Tolstoy's "The Cossacks "for the Modern Library. His translations of fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications, including "The New Yorker, Harper's," and "Paris Review. "He lives in New York City.