A very charming copy of the rare second edition, published very shortly after the first, of this wonderful play by Pierre Corneille, his comic chez-d\u2019oeuvre and certainly one of the most influential on the next generation of playwrights in France, particularly Moli\u00e8re. It has been described as the first great work of comedy in French theatre. It is Corneille\u2019s last Baroque comedy, which was performed for the first time in the Theatre du Marais in 1644, and was one of his major successes. Corneille reworked the play from the Spanish work \u2018la Verdad sospechosa\u2019 (the Supposed Truth) by Alarcon [1625], which he wrongly attributes, in his preface, to de Vega. He often successfully adapted Spanish works by Lope de Vega, or later, the great Spanish playwright Calderon de la Barca. The work has many autobiographic elements; just as Corneille left the law in provincial Rouen for the romantic life of an artist in Paris, so the young liar\/lawyer Dorante leaves his legal studies in Poitiers for romance in the big city. Several verses from the play have become well known proverbs French such as \u2018Le fa\u00e7on de donner vaut mieux que ce qu’on donne.\u2019 or \u2018Si quelqu’un l’entend mieux, je l’irai dire \u00e0 Rome.\u2019 His influence on the course of French play-writing can not be ignored. The same year Corneille wrote The Liar, a 21-year-old Parisian named Jean-Baptiste Poquelin founded his first theatre. When he later wrote his own plays (under the name Moli\u00e8re), he absorbed many of Corneille\u2019s techniques to craft his hilarious and cutting satires on French society. Corneille\u2019s comic subjects and style influenced not only Moli\u00e8re, but also his great successors Marivaux and Beaumarchais.<\/p>\n
This second edition seems to be considerably rarer than the first, perhaps due to it pocket size; we can locate only one location in US libraries, at Harvard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
12mo. pp. [viii], 91 [i]. a4, A-G6, H4. Roman letter. Small typographical ornaments on title, grotesque and floriated woodcut initials and headpieces, typographical ornaments, ms. ex dono from Paul Festingiery to his cousin Paul Buffet dated 1903 on fly. Light age yellowing. A fine copy in beautiful French C19th red morocco by P.R. Reparlier in excellent imitation of a seventeenth century binding, those of Anne D\u2019Autriche in particular, covers double ruled to a panel design, fleurons to outer corners, central panel with fine scrolled corner-pieces, large scroll work fleurons with pointill\u00e9 tools around gilt oval at centre, spine with gilt ruled raised bands, double gilt ruled in compartments with small gilt fleurons, title lettered in gilt, edges gilt ruled, inner dentelles richly gilt, marble end-papers, a.e.g.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13796,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[1,308,412],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13744","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-early-books","7":"product_cat-france","8":"product_cat-theatre","9":"pa_lang-french","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"sold-individually","14":"shipping-taxable","15":"purchasable","16":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\n