This Month in History (1759): Candide published

First posted 11/11/2025.

Candide Francois-Marie de Voltaire

First Publication: January 1759 Category: novella/satire Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists):

About the Book: “Caustic and hilarious,” AZ Candide ranks as “one of the finest satires ever written.” BN It “savagely skewers…[optimism] as a shamefully inadequate response to human suffering. The swift and lively tale follows the absurdly melodramatic adventures of the youthful Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunégonde, and tortured by the Inquisition.” BN Candide decides that “contrary to the teachings of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss – all is perhaps not always for the best.” BN “Indeed, it seemed to be quite the opposite. In brilliantly skewering such naïveté, Voltaire mercilessly exposes and satirizes romance, science, philosophy, religion, and government – the ideas and forces that permeate and control the lives of men.” AZ When he is reunited with Cunégonde, they retire, along with Dr. Pangloss, to a farm in Turkey where Candide opts for a new approach – cultivating one’s own garden, a “philosophy that rejects excessive optimism and metaphysical speculation in favor of the most basic pragmatism.” BN “Filled with wit, intelligence, and an abundance of dark humor, Candide is relentless and unsparing in its attacks upon corruption and hypocrisy – in religion, government, philosophy, science, and even romance. Ultimately, this celebrated work says that it is possible to challenge blind optimism without losing the will to live and pursue a happy life.” BN Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble

This Month in History (1767): The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy final installment published

First posted 11/12/2025.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne

First Publication: December 1759 to January 1767 Category: humorous novel Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists):

About the Book: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was originally published in England in nine volumes acoss five installments from 1759 to 1767. The “great comic novel contains some of the best-known and best-loved characters in English literature – including Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Parson Yorick, and Dr. Slop – and boasts one of the most innovative and whimsical narrative styles in all literature.” AZ The “ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel)” BN “provoked a literary sensation.” BN “At once endlessly facetious and highly serious” AZ it is “rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments” BN and “fascinates like a verbal game of chess.” BN It “is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction.” BN “Its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century.” BN Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble WK Wikipedia