Download the 2010 Catalogue
This two page PDF includes all the currently available Molière & Co. titles. Check back at this website for new titles soon.
A New Series of French Classics for the Classroom
The Molière & Co. French classics are designed to make reading a much easier job than before, more of a pleasure than before.
Their introductions give information about the life and times of the author, important facts about the work, and things to watch out for in the text. Sometimes grammatical information is also given (passé simple, past subjunctive). For editions of plays in verse, explanations of rhyme and meter are given.
We use accurate texts in these editions, either from the public domain, prepared by the editor, or with permission of the publisher.
Words or short expressions in the text that college students of French are unlikely to know (râler, flâner) or perhaps should know but may not (joue, pont) are glossed in the margins; if expressions won’t fit, they are translated in footnotes. English is used because it makes comprehension instantaneous and exact.
Scholar editions prepared in France for French students assume cultural baggage that American students do not have, so lots of references to cultural, historical, mythological, biblical and regional items that you do not see in French editions are footnoted in ours. Since interpretation of the text is for students and their teachers to discuss and figure out, footnotes are only explicative and not interpretative. To make reference in class easy, lines are numbered.
Finally, the French-English glossary includes many more words than those glossed in the margins, and definitions are limited to the meanings from the text.
Call for Editors
We need editors to bring more French classics from all periods to light. If you need an edition for your classes and are dissatisfied with what is available, get in touch with Ted Braun at info@moliereandco.com.
New Titles
Here is a selection of our most recent titles:
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Honoré de Balzac's One of Balzac's Comédie humaine novels, Le Colonel Chabert depicts French life in the time of Napoleon and follows the story of a cavalry officer who returns to his "widow" and Paris years after being declared dead in battle. A study in identity and honor from one of the founders of the French realist novel. |
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Marguerite of Navarre's The Heptameron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite of Navarre, published in 1558. It's frame narrative form was inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron. This edition serves as an introduction to L'Heptameron by including the Prologue and first 10 stories (the portions most likely to be taught in an undergraduate course). |
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George Sand's Regarded as the first French female novelist to gain a major reputation, Aurore Dupin (1804-1876) wrote her first novel, Indiana, under the pseudonym of George Sand. Indiana blends the conventions of romanticism, realism, and idealism. The novel presents a peculiar mixture of romantic desire and socialist and feminist commentary. |
