This book is about four things: Voltaire, happiness, writing—and us.

In this book, Paul Kent sets off in search of happiness, with Voltaire as his guide: en route, he discusses some massively awkward questions, including: What exactly is happiness? Can we achieve it? Can any one era or society be said to be 'happier' than another? What makes for a happy writer? Was Voltaire happy? And what can we learn from his own pursuit of happiness which he chronicled exhaustively?

This book is no dry exercise in theory: all human life is here, illuminated by the bonnes pensées of the mighty Voltaire—the original self-help guru.