Savien Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) French soldier, satirist, and dramatist, whose life has been the basis of many romantic but unhistorical legends. The best-known of them is Edmond Rostand's verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). Bergerac's major works were two posthumously published accounts of fantastic voyages, VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE (1657) and L'HISTOIRE DES ÉTATS ET EMPIRES DU SOLEIL (1662).


Carol Clark is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She taught French there for many years, lecturing particularly on seventeenth and nineteenth-century topics. She has previously translated Baudelaire and Proust for Penguin.