Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in 5 Acts (The Heritage Press) [Five]

New York: The Heritage Press, 1954. Hard Cover. Fine/No Jacket. 10x7x1. Brissaud, Pierre. Includes slipcase and Sandglass insert number III:28. A fine copy in a fine slipcase. 1954 Hard Cover. xvii, 210 pp. A new English version by Louis Untermeyer. Illustrations drawn by Pierre Brissaud. Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, and the play is a fictionalisation following the broad outlines of his life. The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the classical alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Academie francaise and the dames precieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene. The play has been translated and performed many times, and it is responsible for introducing the word "panache" into the English language. Cyrano (the character) is in fact famed for his panache, and he himself makes reference to "my panache" in the play. The two most famous English translations are those by Brian Hooker and Anthony Burgess.