Candide（老实人）

Robert M. Adams’s superlative revised translation of Candide provides the basis for this widely adopted Norton Critical Edition. The accompanying apparatus has been revised in accordance with recent biographical and critical materials.
　　The Backgrounds and Criticism sections provide important essays that shed light on major critical issues relevant to Candide and to the intellectual climate of the period.
　　In addition to the reports of five English visitors to Ferney, essays by Haydn Mason, Erich Auerbach, Ernst Cassirer, and Robert M. Adams are included.
　　The final section of the edition, "The Climate of Controversy," summarizes the debate surrounding Voltaire’s works and includes essays by Peter Gay, Raymond Naves, Gustave Lanson, and John Morley.
　　Also included are a series of quotations about Voltaire by such prominent figures as Gustave Flaubert, Frederick the Great, and Stendhal, as well as the text of "Pangloss’s Song," a ballad from the 1956 Candide-based operetta by Richard Wilbur.

Robert M. Adams was Professor of English Emeritus, University of California at Los Angeles. He was the author of many books, including Ikon: John Milton and the Modern Critics, Strains of Discord, Surface and Symbol, The Land and Literature of England, and Shakespeare—The Four Romances. He edited six other Norton Critical Editions, including Utopia by Sir Thomas More, The Prince by Machiavelli, and The Praise of Folly and Other Writings by Erasmus and Red and Black by Stendhal, the texts of which he also translated. He was also a contributing editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Preface to the Second Edition
The Text of Candide, or Optimism
　"Candide" and Mademoiselle "Cunégonde": A Note on Their Names
　Candide
Backgrounds
　Robert M. Adams • Summary: The Intellectual Backgrounds
　Voltaire • Well, Everything is Well
　Gustave Lanson • Voltaire at Les Délices and at Ferney
　Haydn Mason • [Gestation: Candide Assembling Itself]
　English Visitors to Ferney: A Sampling
　Edward Gibbon, August 1763
　James Boswell, December 1764
　Rev. Nortoon Nichols, August 1771
　Charles Burney, July 1770
　John Moore and Douglas Hamilton (Eighth Duke of Hamilton), July 1772
Criticism
　Robert M. Adams • The Conte Defined
　A Checklist of the Contes of Voltaire, and Related Writings
　Erich Auerbach • [Tone, Pace, Insinuation]
　I.O.Wade • [Voltaire and Candide]
　J. G. Weightman • The Quality of Candide
　Ernst Cassirer • [Voltaire’s Escape from Pascal]
　Robert M. Adams • Getting the Point
The Climate of Controversy
　1.VOLTAIRE’S FAITH
　　Voltaire: Letter on the Subject on Candide
　　Peter Gay: [What Did Voltaire Mean by l’Infame?]
　　André Delattre
　2.VOLTAIRE’S GREATNESS
　　Joseph de Maistre
　　Victor Hugo
　　Edmond and Jules Goncourt
　3.VOLTAIRE’S COHERENCE
　　Emile Faguet
　　Daniel Mornet
　　Raymond Naves
　4.VOLTAIRE’S HUMANITY
　　Madame de Stael
　　Gustave Lanson
　5.VOLTAIRE’S STYLE
　　Hippolyte Taine
　　John Morley
　6.SHORT TAKES
　　Anatole France
　　Gustave Flaubert
　　George Saintsbury
　　André Bellessort
　　Emile Faguet
　　Frederick the Great
　　S. G. Tallentyre
　　Peter Gay
　　Stendhal
　　Richard Wilbur: [Pangloss’s Song]
　　Thomas Jefferson
　　Jacques Van Den Heuvel
　　André Delattre
　　Hugo Friederich
　7.VOLTAIRE’S APOTHEOSIS
　　Paul Valéry
For Further Reading