Candide
Complete textExpelled from a comfortable castle, Candide travels through wars, disasters, exploitation, and improbable reunions. His teacher Pangloss’s confident optimism follows him as a claim increasingly difficult to reconcile with experience. Candide’s search for Cunegonde becomes a rapid journey through competing explanations of a deeply troubled world.
Continue readingAbout Candide
The brisk narration places terrible events beside absurd explanations, allowing the mismatch to produce the satire. Philosophical systems are tested against hunger, violence, work, and the needs of actual bodies. Pay attention to how quickly characters turn suffering into an argument, and to moments when practical action offers something that elegant explanations cannot provide.
Reading focus
Watch philosophical optimism meet concrete suffering in a fast-moving satire that repeatedly asks what explanations are useful for.
This reading edition contains 33,699 words in 31 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Voltaire. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide. The old servants of the family suspected him to have been the son of the Baron's sister, by a good, honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of his genealogical tree having been lost through the injuries of time.
Contents
All sections- HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A MAGNIFICENT CASTLE, AND HOW HE WAS EXPELLED THENCE.4 min
- II — WHAT BECAME OF CANDIDE AMONG THE BULGARIANS.4 min
- III — HOW CANDIDE MADE HIS ESCAPE FROM THE BULGARIANS, AND WHAT AFTERWARDS BECAME OF HIM.4 min
- IV — HOW CANDIDE FOUND HIS OLD MASTER PANGLOSS, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM.5 min
- V — TEMPEST, SHIPWRECK, EARTHQUAKE, AND WHAT BECAME OF DOCTOR PANGLOSS, CANDIDE, AND JAMES THE ANABAPTIST.4 min
- VI — HOW THE PORTUGUESE MADE A BEAUTIFUL AUTO-DA-FÉ, TO PREVENT ANY FURTHER EARTHQUAKES; AND HOW CANDIDE WAS PUBLICLY WHIPPED.2 min
- VII — HOW THE OLD WOMAN TOOK CARE OF CANDIDE, AND HOW HE FOUND THE OBJECT HE LOVED.4 min
- VIII — THE HISTORY OF CUNEGONDE.5 min
- IX — WHAT BECAME OF CUNEGONDE, CANDIDE, THE GRAND INQUISITOR, AND THE JEW.3 min
- X — IN WHAT DISTRESS CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, AND THE OLD WOMAN ARRIVED AT CADIZ; AND OF THEIR EMBARKATION.3 min
- XI — HISTORY OF THE OLD WOMAN.6 min
- XII — THE ADVENTURES OF THE OLD WOMAN CONTINUED.6 min
- XIII — HOW CANDIDE WAS FORCED AWAY FROM HIS FAIR CUNEGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN.4 min
- XIV — HOW CANDIDE AND CACAMBO WERE RECEIVED BY THE JESUITS OF PARAGUAY.6 min
- XV — HOW CANDIDE KILLED THE BROTHER OF HIS DEAR CUNEGONDE.4 min
- XVI — ADVENTURES OF THE TWO TRAVELLERS, WITH TWO GIRLS, TWO MONKEYS, AND THE SAVAGES CALLED OREILLONS.6 min
- XVII — ARRIVAL OF CANDIDE AND HIS VALET AT EL DORADO, AND WHAT THEY SAW THERE.6 min
- XVIII — WHAT THEY SAW IN THE COUNTRY OF EL DORADO.9 min
- XIX — WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AT SURINAM AND HOW CANDIDE GOT ACQUAINTED WITH MARTIN.8 min
- XX — WHAT HAPPENED AT SEA TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN.4 min
- XXI — CANDIDE AND MARTIN, REASONING, DRAW NEAR THE COAST OF FRANCE.3 min
- XXII — WHAT HAPPENED IN FRANCE TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN.16 min
- XXIII — CANDIDE AND MARTIN TOUCHED UPON THE COAST OF ENGLAND, AND WHAT THEY SAW THERE.2 min
- XXIV — OF PAQUETTE AND FRIAR GIROFLÉE.8 min
- XXV — THE VISIT TO LORD POCOCURANTE, A NOBLE VENETIAN.9 min
- XXVI — OF A SUPPER WHICH CANDIDE AND MARTIN TOOK WITH SIX STRANGERS, AND WHO THEY WERE. [34]6 min
- XXVII — CANDIDE'S VOYAGE TO CONSTANTINOPLE.6 min
- XXVIII — WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, PANGLOSS, MARTIN, ETC.5 min
- XXIX — HOW CANDIDE FOUND CUNEGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN AGAIN.2 min
- XXX — THE CONCLUSION.8 min
- FOOTNOTES:7 min
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Is this the complete Candide?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 31 sections and 33,699 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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