Book description
Poet and soldier, brawler and charmer, Cyrano de Bergerac is
desperately in love with Roxane, the most beautiful woman in Paris. But
there is one very large problem - he has a nose of stupendous size and
believes she will never see past it to return his feelings. So when he
discovers that the handsome but tongue-tied Christian is also pining for
Roxane, generous Cyrano offers to help by writing exquisite declarations
of love for the young man to woo her with. Will she ever recognize who
she is really falling in love with? Set during the reign of Louis XIII,
Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) was one of the great theatrical
successes of its time and remains as popular today for its dramatic
power and, above all, for its good-natured, passionate and swashbuckling
hero.
Savien Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) French soldier, satirist, and
dramatist, whose life has been the basis of many romantic but
unhistorical legends. The best-known of them is Edmond Rostand's verse
drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). Bergerac's major works were two
posthumously published accounts of fantastic voyages, VOYAGE DANS LA
LUNE (1657) and L'HISTOIRE DES TATS ET EMPIRES DU SOLEIL (1662).
Carol Clark is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She
taught French there for many years, lecturing particularly on
seventeenth and nineteenth-century topics. She has previously
translated Baudelaire and Proust for Penguin.
