While Voltaire spent his life writing a vast quantity of material, he wrote almost no fiction. Yet, strangely, Candide is the only one of his many works to survive the test of time, virtually unanimously thought to be his greatest work. It consists mainly of attacks on social and philosophical thought which makes it an especially risky subject for a Broadway musical as the history of Bernstein's Candide bears out.

Candide is a rather serious example of a picaresque novel, one that is satirical and depicts in a humorous fashion the doings of a roguish hero, usually of low social class. Some crucial incident (in this case the kiss with Cunegonde), sends the hero off on a series of adventures. It has also been described as a metaphor on Voltaire himself. Like Candide, Voltaire, of bastard origin and constantly on the run, had settled down at Ferney to do some metaphorical gardening.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the start of Seven Years War in 1756, increased Voltaire's disenchantment with the philosophy of Optimism as depicted in Pope's Essay on Man and Leibnitz's Theodicy. His view is summed up when Candide says to Cacambo that optimism is the mania for asserting that all is well when one is not. The literary inspiration could have been Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Like Gulliver, Candide travels, and has weird adventures under weird circumstance.

Myth says Candide was written at Ferney, all at once, and in only a few hours. In fact, it took over two years from the initial conception, through many revisions, before it was published. The result was about 100 pages of both biting and good-natured satire divided into thirty short chapters. "A pot-potpourri of autobiography, pacifist and anticlerical satire, antiprovidentialist skepticism and gloriously humane good hammer and good sense", Voltaire claimed it was written to,"bring amusement to a small number of men of wit". He did not acknowledge authorship at first but claimed it was translated from the German of certain Dr. Ralph. Copies were sent to friends for review, and it was then published simultaneously, but secretly, in five countries. The French parlement protested, pastors protested (‘full of vile things ... contrary to good morals"), and it was quickly banned in Paris and Geneva and put on the Vatican's list of proscribed books. It was too late; 20,000-30,000 copies were snatched up in the first year. Revised versions authorized by Voltaire appeared in 1761 and then again in 1775. (The episode at Surinam, the event which changes Candide's mind, was among those added.) He strongly opposed illustrations and none were used until after his death. For early examples of these see the synopsis.

One commentator called it "Mirthful and wise, the best of all possible stories, an allegory of life and living that does the work of a hundred Bibles and a thousand moral tracts. ... [It was] the objective of Voltaire Almighty to confer freedom on his readers, the freedom to think and to feel and to speak as we consider fit". Anatole France referred to both Candide and Don Quixote as "manuals of pity and indulgence, Bibles of goodwill". Some criticized it as vulgar, but its phrases such as "Let's eat a Jesuit" were quickly in circulation. Like other great works it inspired takeoffs, spurious sequels and adaptations. Candide, Part II was published with several possible authors. It follows Candide's travels in the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Denmark.

Physical evil in Candide, such natural disasters, and social evils, such as syphilis, mock the determined pursuit of happiness of the characters. Horrible events are told in gory detail, but the tone is matter-of-fact; it makes misery seem the normal lot of mankind. Except for El Dorado, the worst of the world is forced into an optimistic outlook, but Candide is still cured in the end.

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Revised August 2008
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