Logically the prose tales should have been discussed after the plays and the poems, but it is desirable to conclude this introduction with a discussion of them, since Candide is the best known philosophic tale, one that has been called "the most remarkable fruit of Voltaire's genius." The author, who believed that all literature should teach, used the tale as a vehicle for his profoundest views on politics, religion, and philosophy. Besides Candide, memorable among them are Zadig (1747), first published under the title of Memnon, in which the young hero, like Candide, travels far and wide, and experiences great dangers. The special interest of this tale is that Voltaire concluded it on a completely optimistic note. L'Homme aux quarante écus (1768) attacks certain political and social practices of eighteenth-century France. A few are out-and-out lampoons on the Bible. Histoires des voyages de Scarmentado (1756) has been described by Gustave Lanson as a kind of preliminary sketch of Candide.
Apparently aware that Candide would shock and offend many readers, Voltaire did not acknowledge authorship of the tale at first. He gave the work the fictitious subtitle: "Translated from the German of Dr. Ralph, with the additions found in the doctor's pocket when he died at Minden, in the year of grace 1759." Its immediate and sustained popularity is indicated by the fact that forty-three editions appeared between 1759 and 1789. A second part, or sequel, was published with the original first in an English edition and erroneously attributed to Voltaire. Further evidence of the popularity of the work is found in the attention given to it by critics from the very start.
In a letter to Voltaire dated February 23, 1759, Nicholas-Claude Theirot praised him as the "most excellent author and inventor of quips and jests" and said that his "book is snatched from hand to hand." Theirot went so far as to predict that Voltaire's work would live for a century and considered it "more like Lucian, Rabelais, and Swift than all three put together." In the same year, Friedrich M. Grimm expressed his views in a letter. He too appreciated the wit and gaiety in Candide but deplored what he considered the author's bad taste, referring to the "vulgarity, indecent talk, and filth without disguise to make them bearable." For him, Candide was no more than a plaisanterie. But for many others, like Mme. de Staël, it was the serious work of a scoffing philosopher.
