SPIRE PITOU was Professor of Emeritus of French Language and Literature at the University of Delaware. In addition to the two previous volumes of The Paris Opera, Genesis and Glory, 1671-1715 and Rococo and Romantic, 1715-1815 (Greenwood Press, 1983, 1985) he wrote La Calprenede's Faramond: A Study of the Sources, Structure, and Reputtion of the Novel and The Text and Soruces of Chateaubrun's Lost Ajax. He collaborated on A Critical Bibliography of French Literature: The Seventeenth Century, A Critical Bibliography of French Literature: The Eihteenth Century, Supplement and Encyclopedia of World Literature, and was the author of numerous articles in English and French.