Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories (Signet Classics) [Paperback]

Francois Voltaire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2001

France’s most distinguished man of letters

This essential collection from the genius Voltaire includes his masterpiece and best-known work Candide, as well as his novel Zadig and fourteen short stories: “Micromegas,” “The World as It Is,” “Memnon,” “Bababec and the Fakirs,” “History of Scarmentado’s Travels,” “Plato’s Dream,” “Account of the Sickness, Confession, Death, and Apparition of the Jesuit Berthier,” “Story of a Good Brahman,” “Jeannot and Colin,” “An Indian Adventure,” “Ingenuous,” “The One-Eyed Porter,” “Memory’s Adventure,” “Count Chesterfield’s Ears,” and “Chaplain Goudman.”

@MoYoLawn Ever wonder how we get across the world so quickly in this book? Continental flies six times daily from Eldorado to Paris.

From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author

François-Marie Arouet, writing under the pseudonym Voltaire, was born in 1694 into a Parisian bourgeois family. Educated by Jesuits, he was an excellent pupil but one quickly enraged by dogma. An early rift with his father—who wished him to study law—led to his choice of letters as a career. Insinuating himself into court circles, he became notorious for lampoons on leading notables and was twice imprisoned in the Bastille.

By his mid-thirties his literary activities precipitated a four-year exile in England where he won the praise of Swift and Pope for his political tracts. His publication, three years later in France, of Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1733)—an attack on French Church and State—forced him to flee again. For twenty years Voltaire lived chiefly away from Paris. In this, his most prolific period, he wrote such satirical tales as “Zadig” (1747) and “Candide” (1759). His old age at Ferney, outside Geneva, was made bright by his adopted daughter, “Belle et Bonne,” and marked by his intercessions in behalf of victims of political injustice. Sharp-witted and lean in his white wig, impatient with all appropriate rituals, he died in Paris in 1778—the foremost French author of his day.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451528093
• ISBN-13: 978-0451528094
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #705,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Bang for your Buck with the Signet Classics volume, September 1, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

This Signet edition of Voltaire's finest works is THE Candide to buy. It has 15 other classic Voltaire works FIFTEEN!! Now that's a great deal without all the bells and whistles!

I remember first being introduced to Voltaire (1694-1778) when I was looking ahead in my history book in school, as was my "pasttime" and was one of the ways how I became a trivial nerd who can name dates and events almost like Rain Man. His picture attracted me because of that smart-aleky grin always on his face. This was a bit surprising considering everyone took serious portraits in that time.

Before long after starting to read this good stuff, you'll have a grin on your face too.

The Age of Reason is where Marie-Francois Arouet, better known by the pen name of Voltaire comes from and it is the setting of one of the most famous satires of all time.

Published in 1759, Voltaire takes apart the philisophical quote by Gottfried Lebniz (1646-1716) which states that, the seventeenth/eighteenth century was "The Best of all Possible Worlds." In Candide, the title naiive character is about to find out just how "great" an era the eighteenth century was.

Next to Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)-whom Voltaire knew and admired, Candide is the most famous satire ever written. It has the best tragical irony and is combined to make it one very memorable and funny reading experience. It seems to me that the eighteenth century was just begging, bowing, scraping, and grovelling to be taken apart by satire and parody, and who would be better to expose the woes of its society than Voltaire, Swift, Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and all the rest of those satirizing cats?!

Probably Mikhail Bulgakov and/or Nikolai Gogol, but those two cats were LATER.

That brings us to the conclusion that there was

NOBODY, THAT'S WHO!!!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Edition of Candide, January 10, 2008

By 

JHF (Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

If you are reading this, you probably know the merits of Voltaire's classic Candide; so I will comment on this particular translation and edition. Donald M. Frame's translation is the best in my view. Frame also wrote the introduction to the 1961 Signet printing. John Iverson supplies the introduction to the new (2001) printing. In addition to Frame's lively translation, and Iverson's introduction, this volume contains 15 other short works by Voltaire and helpful notes and a glossary. This is the best edition of Volataire's Candide that you can buy - and you can't beat the price of 5 bucks!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly recommended translation!, April 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories (Signet classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Candide is one of my most favorite philosophical works because of the humor, honesty, and original perspective that Voltaire brings to this story. This translation is recommended because it also contains many other excellent works from Voltaire, such as Zadig and Micromegas. The translator's notes are very helpful, and in many cases shed light upon Voltaire's intended meaning when the English is not able to convey everything.