A flamboyant and controversial personality of enormous wit and intelligence, Voltaire remains one of the most influential figures of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Candide, his masterpiece, is a brilliant satire of the theory that our world is “the best of all possible worlds.” The book traces the picaresque adventures of the guileless Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunegonde, tortured by the Inquisition, et cetera, all without losing his resilience and will to live and pursue a happy life.

This Modern Library edition, published to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House,

is a facsimile of the first book ever released under the Random House colophon. It includes the timeless illustrations by Rockwell Kent, a twentieth-century artist whose wit and genius serve as a counterpart and compliment to Voltaire’s.

From the Hardcover edition.

伏尔泰

一六九四 ～ 一七七八

法国思想家、文学家、哲学家，十八世纪法国资产阶级启蒙运动的泰斗和灵魂。主要作品有哲理小说《老实人》《天真汉》《查第格》，历史著作《查理十二史》《风俗论》，哲学著作《哲学词典》《哲学书简》等。

傅雷

一九〇八 ～ 一九六六

著名文学翻译家、文艺评论家。从二十世纪三十年代起致力于法国文学的翻译介绍工作，毕生翻译作品三十余部，译文以传神为特色，更兼行文流畅，用字丰富，工于色彩变化。