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THE MODERN LIBRARY

OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS

CANDIDE BY VOLTAIRE

The Publishers will be glad to mail complete list of titles in the Modern Library. The list is representative of the Great Moderns and is one of the most important contributions to publishing that has been made for many years. Every reader of books will find titles he needs at a low price in an attractive form.

CANDIDE

BY VOLTAIRE

INTRODUCTION BY PHILIP LITTELL

BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1918, by BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.

Printed in the United States of America

INTRODUCTION

Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote "Candide" in ridicule of the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a gayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or six generations have found that its laughter does not grow old.

"Candide" has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked if Voltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. It would have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. A modern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of those Atlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage from Cadiz to Buenos Ayres. When Martin and Candide were sailing the length of the Mediterranean we should have had a contrast between naked scarped Balearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should have had quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an Ionian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their silver or acid cries.