Gargantua and Pantagruel is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The work is written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein; features much erudition, vulgarity, and wordplay; and is regularly compared with that of Shakespeare and James Joyce.

The work was stigmatised as obscene by the censors of the Collège de la Sorbonne, and, within a social climate of increasing religious oppression in a lead up to the French Wars of Religion, it was treated with suspicion, and contemporaries avoided mentioning it. Rabelais' fame and influence increased after Thomas Urquhart translated the books into English. Rabelais is now seen as a great comic genius and a master of satire.