Molière's Tartuffe - Paperback

by Richard Wilbur (Translator)

The story takes place in the home of the wealthy Orgon, where

Tartuffe-a fraud and a pious imposter-has insinuated himself. He

succeeds magnificently in winning the respect and devotion of the

head of the house, and then tries to marry his daughter and seduce his

wife and scrounge the deed to the property. He nearly gets away with

it, but an emissary from King Louis XIV arrives in time to recover the

property, free Monsieur Orgon, and haul Tartuffe off to jail. And so his

duplicity is finally exposed and punished. But not before the author

has mercilessly examined the evil that men can commit in the guise of

religious fervor and the dangers that imperil those who would believe

only what they choose to believe despite a mountain of evidence to the

contrary.