These versions of Sophocles, Euripides, Moliere, Racine and Rostand, commissioned at various times between 1985 and 2004, and now revised, are re-issued here in historical order. Three tragedies, two comedies and one 'heroic comedy' (Rostand), done in parallel with the author's work as a poet and critic, they can be read as extensions of his own original verse. Readers will find here, in a theatrical context, the range and depth, the fluency and wit that distinguish his poems and prose. Remade in his distinctive style, the plays aspire, in the words of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac: 'at the very least to strike out with panache, amaze a gaping audience, cut a dash . . .'"