Molière's long-lost trunk of letters and manuscripts has yet to be found amidst the dust of some Parisian attic, but in spite of that, a story of his life can be told from documentary evidence, reminiscence, gossip and innuendo, and inferences from his plays. He was very much a man of his time and place, and this new biography, the first to be written in English since 1930, places the great actor/playwright in his historical context as the son of well-to-do bourgeois and student at the Jesuit College de Clermont in the 1630's, as one of a group of stage-struck hopefuls and as a vagabond actor in the provinces in the 1640's and 50's, and--from 1658 to his death in 1673--as a clever courtier, a faithful friend, a not-so-faithful lover, a successful and controversial playwright striking out against hypocrisy in religion and medicine, and a cynical survivor of the literary, cultural, and marital wars. Virginia Scott is Professor of Theater at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has published numerous articles in Theater Survey, Theater Journal, and Theater Research International as well as writing the book The Commedia dellÀrte in Paris, which won the George Freedley Award for the best book in theater studies in 1991.

Molière's long-lost trunk of letters and manuscripts has yet to be found amidst the dust of some Parisian attic, but in spite of that, a story of his life can be told from documentary evidence, reminiscence, gossip and innuendo, and inferences from his plays. He was very much a man of his time and place, and this new biography, the first to be written in English since 1930, places the great actor/playwright in his historical context as the son of well-to-do bourgeois and student at the Jesuit College de Clermont in the 1630's, as one of a group of stage-struck hopefuls and as a vagabond actor in the provinces in the 1640's and 50's, and--from 1658 to his death in 1673--as a clever courtier, a faithful friend, a not-so-faithful lover, a successful and controversial playwright striking out against hypocrisy in religion and medicine, and a cynical survivor of the literary, cultural, and marital wars. Virginia Scott is Professor of Theater at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has published numerous articles in Theater Survey, Theater Journal, and Theater Research International as well as writing the book The Commedia dellÀrte in Paris, which won the George Freedley Award for the best book in theater studies in 1991.

His biting satire, witty dialogue, and irreverent staging have made him a favorite with theatergoers for four centuries. This Norton Critical Edition of Moliere s most controversial and most often-performed play is based on Constance Congdon s acclaimed new verse translation. It is accompanied by explanatory annotations and nine illustrations of the seventeenth-century farce.

Backgrounds and Sources draws readers attention to the real-life controversy Moliere faced following the opening of Tartuffe, which was immediately banned by the Church. Both sides of the argument surrounding Tartuffe are presented in contemporary documents translated and annotated by Virginia Scott, among them Moliere s three petitions to King Louis XIV, Pierre Roulle on the monarchy, letters by Boileau and Charles Robinet, and Hardouin de Perefixe on the law.

Assessments of Tartuffe as a production are given in seminal reviews by Harold Clurman and John Peter. Constantin Stanislavsky and Louis Jovet discuss the challenges they faced in preparing for modern productions of Tartuffe.

From the wealth of critical commentary on Tartuffe both in the United States and in France, the editors have chosen nine interpretations focusing on the central issues of translation, religion, social history, staging, and international adaptation. Contributors include Nancy Senior, Emanuel S. Chill, Roger W. Herzel, P. Munoz Simonds, Pamela Saur, William J. Beck, Mechele Leon, Wilma Newberry, and Cheryl Kennedy McFarren.

A Chronology of Moliere s life and work and a Chronology are included."

It's the American dream--start a company, make a fortune, and retire early. But to become multimillionaires in their twenties, as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin did, boggles the mind. All they did, after all, is come up with a better way to search for things on the Internet, right? Only in part. No company achieves a market value in the range of $172 billion (in early 2008) based on a single good idea. This new entry in the Corporations That Changed the World series shows how Google exploited the rage for click through ads, instant news, mapping and satellite imagery, email, and more to create a high-tech behemoth that has done nothing less than change the way we work and live.

Chapters in the book:

Explain the importance of the company and the essential disruptions it introduced that changed business forever. -Detail Google's origins and brief history

Present biographies of the founders and the historical context in which they launched the company. -Explain Google's strategies and innovations

Show how Google's treatment of employees--food for free, concierge services, laundry facilities, and more--set the bar high for any company eager to attract the best and brightest

Assess Google's impact on society, technology, processes, methods, etc. (Huge, considering that the company's name has become a verb in the English language )

Show how Google beat Yahoo and other companies working hard to create a roadmap of the Internet. -Detail financial results over the years

Predict Google's future prospects and successes.

In addition, author Virginia Scott offers special features that include a look at the colorful people associated with Google, interesting trivia, ethical issues and controversies, a focus on products, what its detractors have to say, and a look at where the company is headed. Google--a company that changed, and is changing, the world.

Focusing on actresses in France during the early modern period, Virginia Scott examines how the stereotype of the actress has been constructed. The study then moves beyond that stereotype to detail the reality of the personal and artistic lives of women on the French stage, from the almost unknown Marie Ferre - who signed a contract for 12 livres a year in 1545 to perform the 'antiquailles de Rome or other histories, moralities, farces, and acrobatics' in the provinces - to the queens of the eighteenth-century Paris stage, whose 'adventures' have overshadowed their artistic triumphs. The book also investigates the ways in which actresses made invaluable contributions to the development of the French theatre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and looks at the 'afterlives' of such women as Armande Bejart, Marquise Du Parc, Charlotte Desmares, Adrienne Lecouvreur, and Hippolyte Clairon in biographies, plays, and films.