
This volume features the four best known plays by Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand, neo-romantic French poet and dramatist. The plays are: CYRANO DE BERGERAC. A Play in Five Acts. His most famous play, written in 1897. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalization of his life that follows the broad outlines of it. THE ROMANCERS. A Comedy in Three Acts. This burlesque, was adapted in 1960 by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt into the long-running American musical The Fantasticks. CHANTECLER. A Play in Four Acts. This verse play is notable because all the characters are farmyard animals including the main protagonist, a chanticleer, or rooster. The play centers on the theme of idealism and spiritual sincerity, as contrasted with cynicism and artificiality. L'AIGLON. A Play in Six Acts. Is a Napoleonic history, which contained much new information about the unhappy life of the Duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon I, and Marie Louise. (timeless wisdom collection)