Candide

1759, Bantam Classic edition 1988
Voltaire (born François-Marie Arouet), translated by André Maurois, illustrated by Sheilah Beckett
Candide, or Optimism
Original price $2.25, probably bought new
Slightly worn paperback
B

This pessimistic satire is similar to Gulliver's Travels, but it's mostly set in the real 18th-century world.  Gulliver travels the globe and finds that all humanity is corrupt.  Candide travels the globe and finds that only in El Dorado is this the best of all possible worlds.  As in Cymbeline and Pericles, disasters rain upon Candide and nearly everyone he encounters, but the crises are told so wittily that the short novel is constantly entertaining, even things that wouldn't be the slightest bit funny in reality (mutilations, murders, rapes, an earthquake, etc.).  I will admit that the first chapter, where things are just absurd, is the most enjoyable and, if the story had gone on much longer, it would've worn thin.  The ending, with its message that "we must cultivate our garden," is not exactly optimistic but at least holds out more hope than the idea that the best we can do is try to live like horses.

This translation is smooth and presumably captures both Voltaire's dry understatement and his blunt honesty.  Beckett's illustrations in this edition are more explicit than necessary, with nudity included even when it's not supported by the text.  (Check out Cunegonde hovering naked in the murder scene on page 38.)  The best of these line drawings is the one on page 69, where Candide is in El Dorado.