The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux
by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

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Title: A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux

Author: Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

Release Date: June 3, 2004 [EBook #12504]

Language: French and English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES OF MARIVAUX ***

Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

A SELECTION FROM THE COMEDIES OF MARIVAUX

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY
EVERETT WARD OLMSTED

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1901
_All rights reserved_.

To Thomas Frederick Crane, A.M., Of Cornell University,
Whose Profound Scholarship, Inspiring Teachings,
And Lasting Friendship Are Here Gratefully Acknowledged.

PREFACE.

That so typical a representative of eighteenth century society, so
gracious a personality, so charming a writer, and so superior a genius as
Marivaux should be not only unedited, but practically unknown to the
American reading public, is a matter of surprise. His brilliant comedies,
written in an easy prose, and free from all impurities of thought or
expression, offer peculiarly attractive texts for our classes. It is for
these reasons that this edition was undertaken. The plays chosen, _le Jeu
de l'Amour et du Hasard_, _le Legs_, and _les Fausses Confidences_ are
generally considered his best plays, and are fortunately free from
dialect, which, in the mouths of certain characters of _l'Epreuve_ and of
_la Mere confidente_, charming as are these comedies, makes them
undesirable for study in college or school. The text of _les Fausses
Confidences_ is that of 1758 (Paris, Duchesne, 5 vols.), the last
collective edition published during the lifetime of the author, that of
_le Legs_, from the edition of 1740 (Paris, Prault pere, 4 vols.), while
that of _le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, which is contained in neither
the edition of 1758 nor in that of 1740, is from the first collective
edition of his works of 1732 (Paris. Briasson, 2 vols.). It has not seemed
wise to retain the curious o