The play is a lighthearted exploration of the rivalries and intrigues among the women of the French aristocracy, using wit and humor to examine social expectations, relationships, and the complex dynamics between men and women. The story revolves around two women of high social standing who are caught in a fierce competition for the affections of the same man, each using her charm, beauty, and wit to outmaneuver the other.Set within a noble French household, the plot unfolds as the two wom...

Set in 18th-century France, the play is based on the life of the famous French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur, exploring themes of love, jealousy, and the dramatic tensions between personal ambition and the complexities of royal court life. The play combines historical events with fictionalized elements, focusing on the tragic story of Lecouvreur, whose beauty and talent captivated audiences but ultimately led her into a turbulent love affair with the French nobleman Maurice de Saxe.At the he...

In Scribe's Le Puff (1848) - translated here as Believe It or Not - an honourable cavalry officer returns to Paris after five years abroad to find his countrymen happily addicted to exaggeration, dissimulation and downright lying. Can he find happiness and keep his integrity in a world where nothing is what it seems?The enduring qualities of Scribe's work - the complex yet elegant plotting, the quirky characters, the sharply-written dialogue - are all very much in evidence, as with...

The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translationThrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas' epic tale of suffering and retribu...

"Roll over, Maigret. Commissaire Dupin has arrived."—M.C. BeatonCommissaire Georges Dupin, a cantankerous, Parisian-born caffeine junkie recently relocated from the glamour of Paris to the remote (if picturesque) Breton coast, is dragged from his morning croissant and coffee to the scene of a curious murder. The local village of Pont-Aven—a sleepy community by the sea where everyone knows one other and nothing much seems to happen—is in shock. The legendary ninety-one-year-old hote...

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American ReadA popular bestseller since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas’s grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long impr...

"We read The Three Musketeers to experience a sense of romance and for the sheer excitement of the story," reflected Clifton Fadiman. "In these violent pages all is action, intrigue, suspense, surprise--an almost endless chain of duels, murders, love affairs, unmaskings, ambushes, hairbreadth escapes, wild rides. It is all impossible and it is all magnificent."First published in 1844, Alexandre Dumas's swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of D'Artagnan, a gallant young nobl...

Tartuffe (full title: Tartuffe, or the Impostor, French: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur) is a comedy by Molière that is arguably his most famous play. Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A never-before-translated collection by the bestselling author of Suite Française. Written between 1934 and 1942, these ten gem-like stories mine the same terrain of Némirovsky's bestselling novel Suite Française: a keen eye for the details of social class; the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives; the manners and mannerisms of the French bourgeoisie; questions of religion and personal identity. Moving from the drawing rooms of pre-war Paris to the lives of men ...

It is 1919. On a summer's night in Normandy, a new-born baby is left in a basket outside the home of Albert and Jeanne Arnaud. The childless couple take the foundling in, name him Jean, and decide to raise him as their own, though his parentage remains a mystery. Though Jean's life is never dull, he grows up knowing little of what lies beyond his local area. Until the day he sets off on his bicycle to discover the world, and encounters a Europe on the threshold of interesting times...

The scandalous reputation of Laclos's novel, first published in 1782, is based on its chilling portrayal of the mannered decadence and sexual cynicism of the French aristocracy in the last years of the ancien regime. Christopher Hampton has made a masterful adaptation for the stage of the conspiracy to corrupt a young girl barely out of her convent.Les liaisons dangereuses was premiered by Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 24 Se...