Candide » (Special Value)

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.

Francois-Marie Arouet, known better as Voltaire, was hailed as a genius of the Enlightenment, a man dissatisfied with the religious and superstitious attitudes of his time, and a champion of sharp irony and logical reasoning. His most famous book follows Candide and his tutor, Pangloss, as they travel the Earth following the philosophy that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." This adage, however, is disproved at many turns as the characters encounter many obstacles. The initially naïve Candide realizes some of the horrors the 18th-century world contains, but is there any light at the end of the tunnel for the travelers?

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.