Candide, the illegitimate nephew of a German baron and student of eternal optimist Pangloss, is living a simple and sheltered life in “the best of all possible worlds.”

But when Candide falls in love with the wrong woman, his uncle’s young daughter, he is exiled from the baron’s castle and suffers great tragedy and catastrophe, which leaves him disillusioned and questioning the goodness of the universe.

Penned in just three days – and published in secret because of its blasphemous and seditious nature – Voltaire’s legendary satire deftly skewers religious, romantic, and political naïveté with an acerbic and ribald wit that delights to this day.