Les tragedies de Robert Garnier

New collective edition, rare, of the author's eight plays, after the first complete collective edition in 1585. Printed in italics. Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Decorated raised spine. Red morocco title label. Corners and headcaps skillfully restored by a professional. Foxing. Paper yellowed. Upper joint finely cracked. Good copy.
Garnier (1545-1590) is undoubtedly the first great French tragedian. Most of his subjects are drawn from Antiquity, but his last two plays are on one hand a Christian tragedy and on the other, a tragedy inspired by Ariosto. Friend of the Pléiade poets who openly celebrated him (the tragedies contain in their preliminary pieces poems by Ronsard and Belleau, Baïf, or even poetry signed by all three), he was less appreciated by the court. His sense of tragedy is inherited from Seneca and Euripides where the tragic sense depends less on action than on sovereign speech. On the upper cover, in gilt letters: "Club des Arcades."