Condition: Acceptable. Please see the images for more details.
Cover art: The cover shows a detail from 'L'Embarquement pour Cythère' by Watteau, in the Louvre (photo: Snark archives)
Blurb: “TRANSLATED BY JOHN WOOD
He has everything - pleasantry, seriousness, reason, vigour, pathos, eloquence of every kind..?
Voltaire once said of Beaumarchais, 'and yet he strives after none of them..'
It was also said of Beaumarchais (1732-99) that he had only one character - himself - and that Figaro epitomizes all his creator's vices. This does not seem to have stood in the way of his success. If The Barber of Seville and its sequel, The Marriage of Figaro, are known to us almost exclusively through the operas of Rossini and Mozart, then that is our loss, for Beaumarchais's effortlessly light touch makes these two plays high points in eighteenth-century European comedy.”