If Edmond Rostand is known throughout the world today, it is for his play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897; translated, 1921). Although he wrote a total of seven plays and three volumes of poetry, he has been remembered through the years for the "panache" and poetry of his heroic character Cyrano. Rostand wrote at the end of the nineteenth century and was influenced both by early-nineteenth-century Romantic playwrights such as Alfred de Musset and by late-nineteenth-century literary figures such as the Decadents, who emphasized ennui and extravagance. He is notable as one of the last dramatists in France to write his plays in verse. It is often his brilliant use of language, in combination with his winning heroes and heroines, that has been responsible for the praise and continued popularity of Rostand's work.

Born in Marseilles on 1 April 1868, Rostand came from a literary and cultural family. His aunt Victorine Rostand wrote...