The young Candide, a disciple of Dr. Pangloss, in turn a disciple of Leibniz, philosopher of optimism, suffers the misfortune of being faithful to the teaching learned in adolescence: ours is "the best of all possible worlds". Such is the driving force behind this novel that it has become a classic. Voltaire's exuberant imagination does not give a truce and leads us from smiling to laughing. The prologue is by Francisco Rebolledo.