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Author: Edmond ROSTAND.
Title:  Cyrano de Bergerac. Comédie héroïque en cinq actes en vers. Représentée à Paris, sur le Théâtre de la Porte Saint Martin, le 28 décembre 1897.
Publisher:  Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898. First Edition, 88th thousand.
Language: Text in French.
Size: 8" X 5.5 ".
Pages: 225 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good half burgundy leather binding, upper edge gilt (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, some light foxing, and staining  - as shown).

The book: Rare and attractive first edition of Cyrano de Bergerac -- a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, and the play is a fictionalization following the broad outlines of his life. The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the classical alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the dames précieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene.
The play has been translated and performed many times, and it is responsible for introducing the word "panache" into the English language. Cyrano (the character) is in fact famed for his panache, and he himself makes reference to "my panache" in the play. The two most famous English translations are those by Brian Hooker and Anthony Burgess.

The author: Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism and is known best for his 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays contrasted with the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century. Another of Rostand's works, Les Romanesques (1894), was adapted to the 1960 musical comedy The Fantasticks.