Ranjit Bolt: 7 books

‘I try to follow the rule laid down by perhaps the greatest translator of all, John Dryden, who maintained that a translator should – and I paraphrase – make the version as entertaining as possible, while at the same time remaining as faithful as possible to the spirit of the original’ –...

Includes the plays The Liar, The Illusion, Le Cid Pierre Corneille (1606–84), the great seventeenth-century neoclassical dramatist, wrote over thirty plays during his long and varied career. Triumphant in both comedy and tragedy, his plays remain at the core of the repertory. When...

First performed in Paris in 1666, The Misanthrope is one of Molière’s great comic masterpieces. Exasperated by the corruption of society, the cynical but noble Alceste wrestles with his love for the wordly and coquettish Célimène. This version of The Misanthrope was first performed at...

Lysistrata is one of the few surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands...

Written in rhyming couplets 'Losing It' is the story of Lucy, a luscious young virgin who goes to London to try losing her virginity.

Molière, undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of comedy in the history of theatre, won enormous success for The School for Wives (L’Ecole des Femmes) in Paris in 1662; yet this highly popular play, satirising ridiculous male attitudes to women, aroused as much hostility as critical acclaim....

A Lion Was Learning to Ski. Humour, Limericks, Whimsical.