Derek Connon is Emeritus Professor of French at Swansea University. Among other works, he has published monographs on Diderot and Piron and, in collaboration with George Evans, an anthology of opéras-comiques from the repertoire of the early eighteenth-century Parisian fair theatres. He has written numerous articles on French literature, mainly theatre, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. After teaching posts at Queens University Belfast and at the Universities of Exeter and St Andrews, he was appointed Professor of French at Swansea in 1989. Derek is General Editor of the Modern Language Review, and is also a trustee of the Modern Humanities Research Association. He is a keen musician – an interest which sometimes finds its way into his teaching and research.