Coralie's Son: A Comedy in Four Acts in Prose

Albert DelpitProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7

Word count: 127K words
Chapters: 13

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Le Fils de Coralie: Comédie en quatre actes en prose by Albert DelpitAuthor: Delpit, Albert, 1849-1893,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 25, 2013

Editor's review

This is a four-act prose comedy by the French playwright Albert Delpit, included in the original French in Project Gutenberg. Delpit was active in the late nineteenth century, and his plays often focus on family ethics and social relations. This comedy revolves around Coralie's son, unfolding character conflict and emotional turns act by act across its four-act structure. The prose dialogue is close to everyday speech, and the stage directions are concise, making it suitable both for reading and for imagining the staged effect. For intermediate and advanced learners of French, the play is moderate in length and dialogue-heavy, making it good material for practicing dramatic reading and spoken expression; for researchers of French drama, it offers a primary sample of nineteenth-century popular comedy that can be compared with other family-themed plays. When reading, one can sort out character relationships act by act and note shifts in tone and misunderstandings in the dialogue, appreciating how the comic rhythm is driven by conversation. The electronic edition has no annotations or translation, so readers should have their own language tools or refer to relevant theater history materials.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Intermediate and advanced learners of French using it for dramatic dialogue and spoken-expression practice
Scholars studying nineteenth-century French popular comedy and family themes
Literature enthusiasts interested in French dramatic texts
Groups needing public-domain French plays for reading aloud or performance practice

Not a good fit for

Beginners with no French who need a Chinese translation alongside
Readers who prefer long-form novel narrative and are unfamiliar with play format
Beginning researchers expecting detailed stage annotations and scholarly introductions

Reading tips

Read act by act, sorting out character relationships and shifts in conflict after each act
Read the dialogue aloud to feel the tone and rhythm; this conveys the comic effect better than silent reading
Note recurring misunderstandings or key props and observe how they drive the plot
Consult materials on nineteenth-century French staging conventions to understand the stage directions

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a novel or a play?

This is a four-act prose comedy script, including a cast list, dialogue, and stage directions, presented in the original French. It is read differently from a novel: one should attend to scene divisions and characters' entrances and exits, and it suits reading aloud or role-based reading.

What else did Delpit write?

Albert Delpit (1849–1893) was a French playwright and man of letters who wrote several dramatic works, often dealing with family and social relations. This book is one of his four-act comedies; for a full list of works, consult French literary or theater-history sources.

Is the electronic edition suitable for performance use?

The Gutenberg edition provides the complete play text and can serve as a reference for reading aloud and rehearsal, but it contains no performance notes or edition information. For formal performance, check other editions and supplement stage blocking and background materials yourself.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Albert Delpit Author · French · 1849–1893

Albert Delpit (1849–1893) was a French novelist and playwright. Born in New Orleans, he went to France for his education as a young man and remained there for most of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1892. He began his literary career as a poet: his collection L'Invasion, written during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, brought him fame. He later distinguished himself in both fiction and drama. His works often deal with the lower classes and family ethics, with carefully woven plots in which individual destinies mirror the upheavals of the age; his style blends sentiment with realism. His representative works include Jean-nu-pieds, Le Fils de Coralie, Odette's Marriage and Mademoiselle de Bressier. He received several awards, among them the Académie française's Montyon Prize. Five of his works are held in this collection. Public information about him is limited, and details of his life and the full range of his writing remain to be further studied.