Cyrano de Bergerac

Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( SIRR-ə-noh də BUR-zhə-rak, – BAIR-, French: [savinjɛ̃ d(ə) siʁano d(ə) bɛʁʒəʁak]; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.

A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th century. Today, he is best known as the inspiration for Edmond Rostand's most noted drama, Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), which, although it includes elements of his life, also contains invention and myth.

Since the 1970s, there has been a resurgence in the study of Cyrano, demonstrated in the abundance of theses, essays, articles and biographies published in France and elsewhere.

Cyrano's novels L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune ("Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon", published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun, 1662) are classics of early modern science fiction. He was the first writer to depict space flight by use of a vessel that has rockets attached, and he introduced Moon-Men as an extraterrestrial race in his novels. Cyrano's mixture of science and romance in his novels is credited with influencing the works of Jonathan Swift, Edgar Allan Poe and probably Voltaire. Both Pierre Corneille and Molière freely borrowed ideas from Cyrano's works, although only Molière was accused of directly plagiarizing them.