Voltaire is literally in the pantheon of France's greatest literary heroes. But in his lifetime, the unconventional writer-philosopher was shunned by his home country and lived much of his life in exile - the last two decades in - and importantly - just outside Geneva.

And it is here that he wrote his most enduring work: Candide, the story of an ingenue who travels the world and suffers the worst cruelties of humanity and nature, clinging to the cod philosophy that "all is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds".

This episode takes you to the house in Geneva where he wrote the novel, and to the chateau just over the border in France in a village that now bears his name, Ferney-Voltaire.

More details on the episode, and the sources cited in it, are available on the episode page http://bit.ly/46JI9Xc at www.abookaplace.com.

Watch a version of this episode with pictures at https://www.youtube.com/@abookaplace

Part book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva take you to the places behind the stories that made the city.