Candide en Dannemarc, ou l’optimisme des honnêtes gens

Published in Rouen in 1767 and reprinted two years later, Voltaire’s Candide en Dannemarc, ou l’optimisme des honnêtes gens wraps up the adventures of Candide. Turning his back on both Voltairean satire and scepticism, the novelist proposes a moralistic fable – the focal point of which is a rehabilitation of Leibniz’s Theory of Optimism. The main body of the novel tells the story of Candide and his new wife, the noble Zénoïde, in their sumptuous Copenhagen townhouse. Before achieving this happy state, however, the couple endures various trials and tribulations reminiscent of the newly minted gothic genre. Candide en Dannemarc also features a satirical portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.