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Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism and is known best for his 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays contrasted with the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century. Another of Rostand's works, Les Romanesques (1894), was adapted to the 1960 musical comedy The Fantasticks.
Rostand was born in Marseille, France, into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. His father was an economist, a poet who translated and edited the works of Catullus, and a member of the Marseille Academy and the Institut de France. Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, France.
Rostand was married to the poet and playwright Rosemonde-Étienette Gérard who, in 1890, published Les Pipeaux: a volume of verse commended by the Academy. The couple had two sons, Jean and Maurice.
During the 1900s, Rostand came to live in the Villa Arnaga in Cambo-les-Bains in the French Basque Country, seeking a cure for his pleurisy. The house is now a heritage site and a museum of Rostand's life and Basque architecture and crafts. Rostand died in 1918, a victim of the flu pandemic, and is buried in the Cimetière de Marseille.
Books by Edmond Rostand
The Romancers
This 1894 comedy in three-acts was translated by Barrett Clark. Edmond Rostand later became famous with his writing of "Cyrano de Bergerac. The Romancers is best produced with the late 18th century in mind and customs from the Louis XVI period. This...
Cyrano de Bergerac
One of the most beloved French plays of all time, Cyrano de Bergerac is a clever and tragic tale of truth concealed and love denied. Its titular character is a proud, daring swordsman and genius poet who has one terrible flaw: an abnormally large nos...
Cyrano de Bergerac (Hooker translation)
"Cyrano de Bergerac", by Edmond Rostand, is the fictionalized story of the 17th century French swordsman, poet, and author. Rostand's hero is a larger-than-life figure of incredible ability, wit, and courage, but because he has an improbably large no...