Tartuffe

Molière’s most notorious comedy skewers religious hypocrisy through Tartuffe, a smooth-talking fraud who poses as a man of deep piety. He has so charmed the wealthy Orgon that the gullible householder plans to marry off his daughter to the schemer and sign away his fortune, blind to the ruin closing in on his family. Only Orgon’s sharp-witted wife Elmire sees through the act, and she sets a trap to expose the impostor before it is too late. First staged in 1664, the play so enraged powerful religious factions that it was banned for years. Its portrait of sanctimony masking greed has kept it alive on stages for more than three centuries. This free PDF and EPUB edition presents an accessible English verse translation.