Zadig Reading Order

Zadig ou la Destinée (1747) by Voltaire is the first and most elegant of the philosophical tales — the story of the Babylonian Zadig, whose good sense, intelligence, and virtue lead him from one disaster to another, testing the question of whether virtue is rewarded and providence comprehensible. The tale draws on Oriental sources (the Arabian Nights, the Thousand and One Nights tradition, the Persian and Turkish tale tradition) to create the characteristic conte philosophique world: a stylized, exotic setting that permits philosophical exposition without the density of realistic fiction. Zadig is more ambiguous about providence than Candide — the angel Jesrad who appears at the end offers a partial theodicy (evil is permitted for the sake of greater good), which Zadig partially accepts; but the conclusion is less confident than the angel's argument, and Voltaire's later Candide will repudiate the Jesrad position entirely. The tale contains some of Voltaire's most celebrated satirical portraits: the envious Arimaze, the false astrologer, the Babylonian court — and the famous detective passage in which Zadig deduces the characteristics of the queen's dog and the king's horse from their footprints, the first deductive detective story in European literature (and the acknowledged source of the Baker Street method).