_With Preface to Moliere's Works by Honore de Balzac, Criticisms on theAuthor by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, and decorativeTitlepages._
=Arrangement of the Plays.=
Vol. I. The Misanthrope; Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Vol. II. Tartuffe; Les Precieuses Ridicules; George Dandin. Vol. III. Les Femmes Savantes; Le Malade Imaginaire. Vol. IV. L'Avare; Don Juan; Les Facheux. Vol. V. L'Ecole des Femmes; L'Ecole des Maris; Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. Vol. VI. L'Etourdi; Le Mariage Force; Le Medecin Malgre Lui; La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes.
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All are familiar with Miss Wormeley's admirable English version ofBalzac; and we know of no greater praise in behalf of her recenttranslation of Moliere than to say it betrays the same knowledge, skill,and insight that has made her name famous among the lovers of highliterature. While it is undoubtedly true that the student of Molierewould turn by preference to the original, it is equally true that thosewho cannot read his works in their native form are now indebted to MissWormeley for an appreciation of Sainte-Beuve's declaration "that to loveMoliere is to love uprightness and health of mind, in others as well asin ourselves." She did a splendid service for two literatures by heradmirable English rendering of the author whom many regard as France'sfirst novelist, and now she continues by an equally excellenttranslation of the works of the genius to whom is conceded with stillgreater unanimity the rank of France's first dramatist. And by a happythought Miss Wormeley avails herself, for the presentation of Moliere toAmerican readers, of the eloquent tribute which Balzac paid to him inhis preface to his own edition of Moliere, issued in his younger days.The translator also calls attention to the singular parallel afforded inthe lives of the two writers. These "fathers of the 'Comedy of HumanLife' and of realism," she says, "died at the same age (fifty-one); thefame of both was of little more than fifteen years' duration in theirlifetime; both died of the toil to which their genius impelled them; andboth are going down with ever-brightening lustre to posterity."--_BostonBudget._