Lauded by the theatergoing public and many critics during the period of France's Second Empire, Octave Feuillet now appears in nineteenth-century theater history as a secondary playwright after Alexandre Dumas fils, Emile Augier, and Victorien Sardou. An acclaimed writer of novels as well, Feuillet adapted some of these works for the stage after first presenting both novels and plays to the public in the review titled La Revue des Deux Mondes. Theater critics praised the moral lessons taught through his plays: the importance of marriage as an institution and the value of religious faith. His portrayal of high-society women and their elegant world attracted readers and audiences. According to reviewers, Alfred de Musset, George Sand, and Alexandre Dumas père all influenced Feuillet's writing, which exhibited both realist and idealist tendencies. American theaters continued to perform translations and adaptations of Feuillet's work into the twentieth century, and...