Molière Books in Order

To escape an unwanted marriage, Lucile pretends to be ill while her lover’s servant poses as a doctor. His increasingly elaborate deceptions create a comic crisis when maintaining the disguise requires him to appear as two different people.

Jealous Barbouille seeks help controlling his wife Angelique, but the pompous doctor he consults offers little practical advice. Their domestic conflict becomes a contest of deception as Angelique finds ways to outmaneuver her suspicious husband.

In Messina, two young men compete for Célie, who has been left with an old man as security for a loan. Resourceful servant Mascarille devises schemes to help his master win her, only for the master’s blunders to undo them.

A romantic quarrel grows as jealousy, wounded pride and misread intentions turn small misunderstandings into larger conflicts. Interfering companions and concealed motives complicate attempts at reconciliation in a comedy about affection undermined by suspicion.

Magdelon and Cathos dream of fashionable society and sophisticated admirers, filling their lives with affected manners and pretensions. When suitors confront their shallow expectations, their attempts to appear cultivated expose the vanity beneath their carefully managed appearances.

Brothers Ariste and Sganarelle take opposite approaches to raising two young women entrusted to them. While one allows freedom, the other plans to marry his tightly controlled ward, whose determination to choose her own husband sets a deception in motion.

A religious impostor gains the confidence of Orgon, who welcomes him into his household and ignores his family’s warnings. As Tartuffe pursues wealth, marriage, and his host’s wife, those around him struggle to expose the hypocrisy beneath his pious manner.

Determined to marry a younger woman, the aging Sganarelle begins to doubt whether his decision is wise. He consults philosophers, friends and fortune-tellers, but their conflicting advice leaves him increasingly anxious about the marriage he has planned.

A young woman pretends to be ill so that she can marry the man she loves. Her deception brings the medical profession into a farcical courtship scheme, where supposed expertise proves less effective than the ingenuity of the lovers.

Don Juan has pursued pleasure across Europe, breaking promises and disregarding the people he hurts. As time begins to run out, his habitual defiance faces a reckoning in a dark comedy about a life spent refusing restraint.

Young Myrtil loves Melicerte, but his father has already promised him to one of two nymphs. As the lovers seek permission to marry, an announcement from the king unsettles their hopes in this unfinished pastoral play.

Alceste condemns the hypocrisy and pretensions of polite society while remaining blind to his own faults. His growing irritation with everyone around him collides with his attachment to a woman whose social world embodies much of what he despises.

Adraste longs to speak with Isidore, whose jealous guardian Don Pedro keeps her closely watched. With help from his resourceful servant Hali, he devises a disguise and a series of tricks to gain access to her.

Jupiter takes the absent general Amphitryon's appearance to pursue his wife, while Mercury impersonates the servant Sosia. The real men's return turns the gods' deception into a bewildering series of confrontations over identity, fidelity and authority.

Two princes compete to impress a princess and her mother with elaborate entertainments, while a general conceals his own love for her. Courtly ambition, differences of rank and an astrologer's influence complicate the contest for her affection.

Psyche's beauty provokes Venus's jealousy, exposing the young woman to divine punishment. A mysterious lover offers happiness, but interference from her sisters threatens their relationship and draws her into further trials in this mythological verse drama.

A provincial countess returns from Paris convinced of her elevated social standing. Her pretensions and the attentions of competing suitors expose the distance between her ambitions and reality in a comedy of status and fashionable behavior.

Octave's father returns intending to arrange his marriage, threatening the young man's existing attachment. The resourceful servant Scapin intervenes with elaborate tricks, drawing two fathers and two pairs of lovers into an increasingly tangled comedy of deception.