Edmond Rostand was born in 1868 in Marseille to an artistic family. A brilliant student, he arrived in Paris to study law in 1884. He frequented literary circles and began to write, winning the prestigious annual prize of the Academie de Marseille for an essay on "Two Provençal novelists," in which he compared Honoré d'Urfé and Émile Zola.
Rostand married the poet and playwright Rosemonde-Étienette Gérard at age twenty-two; the couple had two sons, Maurice and Jean.
His early work was primarily comedic. Rostand often worked with famed actress Sarah Bernhardt, who starred in two of his early plays and would later produce and star in his L'Aiglon.
Rostand started writing Cyrano de Bergerac...
