Pierre de Lavirey was born in the east of France in 1541 and died in 1619 in Troyes. Little is known about him or his life, but, in addition to his translations of various Italian books, he has left behind him adaptations into French of nine Italian plays which make him one of the most prolific writers of comedy in the sixteenth centruy. These adaptations are a valuable source for the study of the language of the theatre and of the techniques of creative translation in the period. Les Tromperies formed part of the second collection of adaptations written by Lavirey. It was first published in...

These three tales, hailed by Diderot among others, but unpublished for over a century (and in one case for nearly two centuries), are a fictional exploration of Otherness and the intercultural set in the New World, either among native Americans (Abenakis, Iroquois) or runaway slaves in Jamaica befriended by Quakers. They argue powerfully for a reassessment of the philosophe Saint-Lambert, since they represent a significant contribution to the anti-slavery debate of the time and to a consideration of cultural relativity, revitalised by recent postcolonial discourses. This title is Volume 99 in...

This critical edition of Francoise Pascal's epistolary collection Le Commerce du Parnasse (Paris, 1669) highlights a rare, innovative and entertaining work by a woman writer virtually unknown today, but in her time a distinguished playwright, poet and painter. Composed of thirty-seven letters in prose and verse, Le Commerce du Parnasse is part gallant correspondence, part poetry collection, part epistolary novel. Now in its first modern edition, this fascinating text provides new insights into seventeenth-century salon life and the discourses of galanterie and preciosite.This is a volume in...

La Soeur (1645) is one of the liveliest and most successful comedies by Jean Rotrou. It is an ingenious adaptation, long unidentified, of an Italian comedy, La Sorella (c.1584), by the polygraph Giambattista Della Porta. Sometimes it remains close to the original text, while at other times it is bold in eliminating superfluous material and in imparting a convincingly French flavour to the dialogue. The introduction to this new edition assesses the originality of Rotrou's adaptation. The notes are devoted above all to linguistic questions and to the many exotic allusions found in...

The principal aim of this edition is to provide a reliable version of the text of Le Mariage force which can be used by students and scholars of 17th-century theatre. Le Mariage force, a little-known work, is a paricularly interesting example of the comedie-ballet genre as it was written and performed by Moliere and his troup in three different versions over a period of eight years. First performed in front of Louis XIV and his court, complete with music, ballet and singing, the play also marks Moliere's first work in which Louis XIV took an active role. The book includes all the texts which...