author
Jean-François Regnard
1655–1709
A sharp, lively voice in French comedy, this 17th-century playwright was often seen as one of the strongest heirs to Molière. His adventurous life also fed a lasting interest in his travel writing, giving his work an energy that still feels vivid.
1 Audiobook
Voyages voyage de Laponie, voyage de Flandre et de Hollande, du Danemark, de la Suède
by Jean-François Regnard
About the author
Born in Paris in 1655, Jean-François Regnard became one of the best-known French comic dramatists of the generation after Molière. He came from a wealthy family, inherited money while still young, and spent much of his early adulthood traveling widely across Europe.
Those travels were unusually dramatic. Accounts of his life note that he was captured by Algerian pirates and held for a time before being freed, and he later turned travel into literature as well as experience. Alongside his plays, he became known for the diary of a voyage he made in 1681.
Regnard is especially remembered for witty, fast-moving comedies marked by elegance and amusement rather than heavy moralizing. Among the works most often associated with him are Le Joueur and Le Légataire universel. He died in 1709, but his reputation endured for many years as one of France's major comic playwrights.