The first book, commonly called Pantagruel (1532), deals with some of the fantastic incidents of the early years of Pantagruel. Rabelais displayed his profound comic sense, love of language, and storytelling genius within the framework of a mock-heroic romance. Pantagruel is endowed with enormous strength and appetites, and his early years are full of fantastic incidents. While at the University of Paris, he receives a letter from his father that is still considered an essential exposition of French Renaissance ideals. In Paris Pantagruel also meets the cunning rogue Panurge, who becomes his companion throughout the series.

In Gargantua (1534) old-fashioned scholastic pedagogy is ridiculed and contrasted with the humanist ideal of King Francis I, whose efforts to reform the French church Rabelais supported.

Le Tiers Livre (1546; “The Third Book”) is Rabelais’s most profound and erudite work. In it Pantagruel has become a sage; Panurge is self-absorbed and bedeviled, wondering if he should marry. He consults various prognosticators, allowing Rabelais to hold forth on sex, love, and marriage and to satirize fortune-tellers, judges, and poets. Panurge persuades Pantagruel and friends to join him on a voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle in Cathay for an answer. This they do in Le Quart Livre (1552; “The Fourth Book”), which reflects the era’s interest in exploration; the Pantagruelians encounter a series of islands that present opportunities for the author to satirize the religious and political forces that were wreaking havoc on 16th-century Christendom. In a fifth book, Le Cinquième Livre (1564; of doubtful authenticity), the band arrives at the temple of the Holy Bottle, where the oracle answers Panurge with a single word: “Drink!”