Jean Racine

• Principal Dates, Introduction, Part I: The Varied Prospect, 1. Boyhood and Port-Royal, 2. Paris and the Vitarts, 3. Uzès, Part II: Through the Jungle, 4. The Theatre in 1663, 5. Racine’s Debut: La Thébaïde and Alexandre, 6. The Break with Port-Royal, 7. Andromaque, 8. Life and Death of the Du Parc. Les Plaideurs, 9. The Challenge of Corneille, 10. The Assault on Corneille: Britannicus, 11. The Defeat of Corneille: Bérénice, 12. Patrons, Friends and Lovers, 13. A Turkish Interlude: Bajazet, 14. The Fruits of Success. Mithridate, Iphigénie, 15. The Quarrel of Phèdre, 16. Phèdre, Part III: The Promised Land, 17. Towards Security, 18. The Dramatist Re-born: Esther and Athalie, 19. The Eternal Theatre, 20. The Bourgeois Years: Family and Religion, 21. The Last Phase, 22. The Originality of Racine, Appendix: La Voisin’s Testimony, Notes, Bibliographical Note, Index

Review for the 1973 edition:‘Geoffrey Brereton’s critical biography is a book that not only lights up the whole stage-surround of Racine’s life but explores, with an intelligence and sensitivity that matches the subject, the poet’s disturbing and sometimes sinister temperament.’John Raymond in The New Statesman