Cyrano De Bergerac

Rostand’s 1897 verse play created a hero the French stage has never let go: a Gascon swordsman, poet, and duelist whose wit outruns every opponent, and whose enormous nose convinces him that Roxane could never love him. When she confides that she has fallen for the handsome young cadet Christian, Cyrano lends the boy his words, writing the letters that win her and hiding beneath her balcony to feed him his lines. The verse is fireworks, the plot is a slow ache, and the last scene has been undoing audiences for well over a century. Rostand borrowed the name from a real seventeenth century writer and invented almost everything else. Free PDF and EPUB edition here.