"The Paris Opera Ballet" is the cradle of ballet, tracing the origin of ballet as a theatre art back to its foundation by Louis XIV in 1669. Over more than three centuries, dance has retained its place as a potent element in its repertory in a long sequence of ballets and divertissements that have been presented on a succession of stages, culminating in our time in the Palais Garnier and the Opera Bastille. In 1976, to mark the centenary year of the former of those two theatres, Ivor Guest was commissioned by the Opera to write the history of its ballet, a work which he brought up-to-date in 2002, and which is now presented for the first time in an English edition.