This first biography of Racine in over half a century for an English-language readership also traces the impact of Racine over three centuries in England as well as France. The plays and their reception are reviewed, using contextual approaches as part of each phase of Racine's life-story, with excerpts and quotations translated. Racine's upbringing and work as poet and historiographer are related to the France of Louis XIV, to audiences and to advancement for this 'man from nowhere', with parallels in Britain and elsewhere. Changing attitudes to Racine are traced across the centuries, across literary movements and on stage, including recent productions. The book provides insights in the specialist field of Racine studies and seventeenth-century French literature and theatre, in comparative literary studies, particularly between France and Restoration England, and to the interaction of Racine and European cultural movements to the present day.

Racine the practising dramatist had been in some danger of being crowded out from the numerous books on his psychology and style. In this critical study of the man and his work, first published in 1951 and this slightly revised edition originally in 1973, Dr Brereton’s guiding principle has been to make the factual basis as accurate as it can be in the light of modern research. The result is the portrait of a sensitive and attractive figure which is none the worse for being shorn of certain legends.

This study highlights that both Corneille and Racine were living writers, struggling to create developing forms within the strait-jacket of neo-classical decorum.

"This is an examination of the influence of the plays of Euripides on the French tragedian Racine, gleaned from Racine's markings on the texts. In her study, Phillippo examines the way in which the creative processes linking the two writers may have worked. She concentrates on the largely unexplored evidence supplied by ""non-verbal"" aspects of the annotations: the markings of lines and passages by underlining, brackets, etc. Such markings suggest how Racine probably understood the Greek ""originals"", and reveal the qualities of the Greek dramatist to which the French writer appears to have responded."

Will appeal to all music, literature, and art lovers seeking to deepen their knowledge of an increasingly popular repertoire.