Translator of Balzac's Novels.
With Preface to Molière's Works by Honoré de Balzac, Criticisms on the Author by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, and decorative Titlepages.
Arrangement of the Plays.
Vol. I. The Misanthrope; Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
Vol. II. Tartuffe; Les Précieuses Ridicules; George Dandin.
Vol. III. Les Femmes Savantes; Le Malade Imaginaire.
Vol. IV. L'Avare; Don Juan; Les Fâcheux.
Vol. V. L'École des Femmes; L'École des Maris; Monsieur
de Pourceaugnac.
Vol. VI. L'Étourdi; Le Mariage Forcé; Le Médecin Malgré
Lui; La Critique de l'École des Femmes.
All are familiar with Miss Wormeley's admirable English version of Balzac; and we know of no greater praise in behalf of her recent translation of Molière than to say it betrays the same knowledge, skill, and insight that has made her name famous among the lovers of high literature. While it is undoubtedly true that the student of Molière would turn by preference to the original, it is equally true that those who cannot read his works in their native form are now indebted to Miss Wormeley for an appreciation of Sainte-Beuve's declaration "that to love Molière is to love uprightness and health of mind, in others as well as in ourselves." She did a splendid service for two literatures by her admirable English rendering of the author whom many regard as France's first novelist, and now she continues by an equally excellent translation of the works of the genius to whom is conceded with still greater unanimity the rank of France's first dramatist. And by a happy thought Miss Wormeley avails herself, for the presentation of Molière to American readers, of the eloquent tribute which Balzac paid to him in his preface to his own edition of Molière, issued in his younger days. The translator also calls attention to the singular parallel afforded in the lives of the two writers. These "fathers of the 'Comedy of Human Life' and of realism," she says, "died at the same age (fifty-one); the fame of both was of little more than fifteen years' duration in their lifetime; both died of the toil to which their genius impelled them; and both are going down with ever-brightening lustre to posterity."—Boston Budget.
12mo. Half leather. Per volume, $1.50.