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Eighteenth Century French Plays
Mss 281  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access Restrictions
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms
  • Related Materials in Special Collections

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Eighteenth Century French Plays
    Dates: ca. 1707-1979
    Bulk Dates: 1730s-1850s
    Collection number: Mss 281
    Collection Size: 9 linear feet (6 cartons).
    Repository: University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections
    Santa Barbara, CA 93106
    Abstract: The collection contains 124 volumes (in 71 incomplete sets) of French tragic, comedic, and vaudeville plays from the 17th and18th centuries, including many from the revolutionary era.
    Physical location: SRLF.
    Languages: French

    Access Restrictions

    Collection is stored off-site; advance notice required for retrieval.

    Publication Rights

    Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

    Preferred Citation

    Eighteenth Century French Plays. Mss 281. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Acquisition Information

    Undetermined.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The collection contains 124 volumes (in 71 incomplete sets) of French tragic, comedic, musical and vaudeville plays primarily from the 18th century, including many from the revolutionary era. Notable playwrights include Beaumarchais, Marivaux, Regnard, and Voltaire. The plays were printed by various publishers and bound together in sets, which have been assigned numbers in this guide. The collection is arranged by set then volume number. Many of the sets are incomplete.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Theater--France.

    Related Materials in Special Collections

    Special Collections holds many volumes of individually cataloged plays by the playwrights featured in this collection, including the following:
    • Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de (1732-1799). French playwright. Holdings include Eugénie (1767) and Les Deux Amis, ou, Le Négociant de Lyon (1770), anthologized in Spec ML50.2.N95 1755; Le Barbier de Séville (1776) and L'Autre Tartuffe, ou, La Mère Coupable (1794), anthologized in Spec PQ2066.S6 A75 1766; and a fine press edition of Le Mariage de Figaro (1927) by Henry Babou [Spec PQ1956.A7 1927]. Gioacchino Rossini's operatic version of The Barber of Seville is also available on 78 rpm records (1942) [PA Victor M 898].
    • Destouches, Philippe Néricault (1680-1754). French playwright. Holdings include Le Curieux Impertinent (1711) [Spec PQ1977.D7 A634 1711]; Le Philosophe Marié (1727), La Force du Naturel (1750), L'Obstacle Imprévu (1767), and La Fausse Agnès (1772), all anthologized in Spec PQ1977.D7 A75 1727; and L'Ingrat (1775) [Spec PQ1977.D7 I5].
    • Molière (1622-1673) [pseudonym of Jean Baptiste Poquelin.] French playwright. Holdings include early editions of Amphitryon (1684) [Spec PQ1826.A7 1684], the eight-volume set Oeuvres de Moliere (1718) [Printers Z239.4.D3 M6], and Le Médecin Malgre Lui (1732) with French and English parallel text [Spec PQ1836.M4 1732]. Fine press editions of Tartuffe (1930) by the Limited Editions Club [Printers Z239.L5 M6] and L'Avare (1931) by Éditions du Bélier [Printers Z257.M538 1931]. Additionally, a passage from L'Avare is recited by Emile M. Stéphan on a 78 RPM record [PA Mss 19/ARVM 23401]. See also Dossiers Molières: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1975) by Sylvie Chevalley [Spec PQ1829.B67 1975].
    • Racine, Jean (1639-1699). French dramatist. Holdings include Iphigénie (1743) [Spec PQ1896.A1 1743], The Distrest Mother (1791) in English [Spec PQ1890.A45 1791], the seven-volume set Œuvres de Jean Racine (1808) [Spec PQ1885 1808], and The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine (1889) in English [Spec PQ1888.E5 B6]. Fine press edition of Phaedra (1958) by the Grabhorn Press [Printers Z239.G7 R3].