{"product_id":"tower-ruy-blas-book-alexandre-dumas-9781840025330","title":"The Tower \/ Ruy Blas","description":"\"The Tower and Ruy Blas, written in the 1830s by two of the most eminent French writers of their time, provide us with a fascinating insight into early Romantic drama which swept the classical verities of Racine, Marivaux and Beaumarchais from the stage and replaced them with a melange of melodrama, German Sturm und Drang and Shakespearean complexity. In the fashion of the time, both plays are set in the past.  The Tower is a riotously inaccurate retelling of a notorious royal scandal from fourteenth-century France. The text, full of unexpected developments and shocking revelations, has a twisted history of its own: written by the little-known Frederick Gaillardet, it was taken on and 'improved' by Alexandre Dumas pere at a late stage, as much to add his famous name to the credits as his literary expertise to the play.  Set in seventeenth-century Spain, Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas is named after its low-born hero, forced to masquerade as an aristocrat as part of his disgraced master's revenge against the Queen. Noble in heart, Ruy Blas soon proves a champion of the poor and all but wins what he most wants in the world: the Queen herself. Hugo's most admired and, in France, most frequently staged play, it has never been performed in its original form in English.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50570661200145,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50570661593361,"sku":"GOR011605407","price":12.49,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50570661658897,"sku":"GOR014001948","price":11.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1840025336.jpg?v=1750767220","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/products\/tower-ruy-blas-book-alexandre-dumas-9781840025330","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}