"Life's a Dream (La vida es sueno, 1636) is the best known and most widely admired play of Catholic Europe's greatest dramatist, Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Calderon's long life (1600-1681) witnessed both the pinnacle and collapse of Spanish political power as well as the great flowering of Spanish classical literature." "Despite its longtime place atop the Hispanic canon, Calderon's masterpiece remains relatively unknown by general readers outside the Spanish-speaking world. Michael Kidd's new prose translation aimed to correct this deficiency by rendering the play into a transparent, modern American idiom that preserves the beauty and complexity of Calderon's Baroque Spanish. The result is a text that is enhanced by a selection of supporting materials, including a thorough critical introduction and glossary."--BOOK JACKET.