"Many good things are provided for our instruction and delight in this handsome volume. Chief among them perhaps, and most keenly wanted in a collection of this sort . . . are sanity and wit."?The Romanic Review "A most interesting literary history of the Don Juan theme with the plays or works themselves serving as illustrations. Professor Mandel's general introduction and his shorter introductions and commentaries throughout the book are solid, wise, and engaging."?Robert E. Taylor, Renaissance News "This anthology is exhaustive and informative, expertly translated, and, by virtue of its subject, damned exciting."?Quarterly Journal of Speech "[The translations] are lively and . . . quite faithful to the originals. . . . The long introduction could well stand alone: fruitful in original observations on the nature of Don Juan, spirited, argu-mentative, and quite personal."?Armand F. Singer, Hispania The eternal Don Juan, the creation more than 350 years ago of a monk and dramatist known as Tirso de Molina, has appeared on the boards as a thinker and fool, hero and villain, but never as anything less than a great lover. Oscar Mandel's Theatre of Don Juan presents different aspects of the Don's spectacular progress through a half-dozen countries, epochs, and intellectual climates. Here are full-length plays by Molina, Moli_re, Shadwell, Da Ponte, Grabbe, Moncrieff, Zorrilla, and Rostand; excerpts from plays by Shaw, Montherlant, and Frisch; plus a dozen critical and interpretative essays. In his introduction, Mandel examines the legend of Don Juan.

Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke offers a wry and entertaining take on history's most famous seducer as he takes a respite from his stressful existence Don Juan's story—"his own version"—is filtered through the consciousness of an anonymous narrator, a failed innkeeper and chef, into whose solitude Don Juan bursts one day. On each day of the week that follows, Don Juan describes the adventures he experienced on that same day a week earlier. The adventures are erotic, but Handke's Don Juan is more pursued than pursuer. What makes his accounts riveting are the remarkable evocations of places and people, and the nature of his narration. Don Juan: His Own Version is, above all, a book about storytelling and its ability to burst the ordinary boundaries of time and space. In this brief and wry volume, Peter Handke conjures images and depicts the subtleties of human interaction with an unforgettable vividness. Along the way, he offers a sharp commentary on many features of contemporary life.

This book invites the reader to consider the history of Moliere's much-censored and oft-bowdlerized play "Don Juan," and to imagine, through this version of its text, its original fire. Moliere's wildly controversial script enjoyed exactly one performance before the censors and lobbyists started pulling it apart. This version supposes what could or might have been head that night, and means to bring modern audiences into the hour of the play's premiere-the high stakes for all involved, and the alarming effect the text and its ideas clearly had on those present. It includes a brief history of the play's suppression and early published editions, by Joan DeJean, an indefatigable scholar of Moliere, "Don Juan" and French culture. It also includes a brief history of Moliere's political and theatrical milieu.

'Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold' is a one-act comedy in verse by Molière. The story deals with the consequences of jealousy and hasty assumptions in a farcical series of quarrels and misunderstandings involving Sganarelle (the imagined cuckold of the title), his wife, and the young lovers, Célie and Lélie.

First published in 1990, Don Juan: Variations on a Theme explores the differing perceptions of this famous character following his first appearance on the European stage in the early seventeenth century. The book concentrates on the ways in which perceptions of Don Juan’s character have altered in response to changes in social and moral values. It examines famous Don Juan works, including those by Moliere, Byron, Pushkin, Shaw, Anouilh, and Max Frisch, and relates them to these changing views. It also looks at a variety of other plays, poems, and novels on this theme, and highlights the important role of music in Don Juan’s history. The book concludes with a consideration of Don Juan’s lasting popularity and whether it has run its course. Don Juan: Variations on a Theme will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of Don Juan, comparative literature, and European literature.