François Rabelais wrote the five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel between roughly 1532 and 1564, creating a comic epic of extraordinary scope and energy. The adventures of the giant kings Gargantua and Pantagruel and their companion Panurge are vehicles for sweeping satire of scholasticism, religion, law, and human folly, all delivered in an exuberant torrent of wordplay, lists, parody, and philosophical digression.
Rabelais shaped the French language and invented a style of comic writing that later influenced Sterne, Swift, and Joyce. Download this public-domain English translation as a free EPUB and experience one of the Renaissance’s most extraordinary minds.