Doctor Knock
1923 play by Jules Romains
Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine, better known in English as Doctor Knock or Dr. Knock, is a 1923 French-language satirical play in three acts about modern medicine, written by Jules Romains. It was performed for the first time at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 15 December 1923 in a production by Louis Jouvet. It was published in the English-language under the title Doctor Knock in 1925 using a translation by Harley Granville-Barker. Barker's version had earlier premiered in London at the Royalty Theatre on 27 April 1924 in the first English language production of the play. Granville-Barker's translation was also used for the work's Broadway production at the American Laboratory Theatre in 1928.
The play was presented with set designs by a young Orson Welles in Dublin in 1932, translated into and performed in Esperanto the same year, and also broadcast on TV by BBC Television as early as 1938.
Plot
The ambitious Dr. Knock arrives in a rural village, Saint-Maurice, to step into Dr. Parpalaid's footsteps as the local physician.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Doctor Knock” as 1923 play by Jules Romains. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1923 play by Jules Romains. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3198032. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1923, 1925, 1924 and 1928.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Doctor Knock”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Doctor Knock primary sources, Doctor Knock archive and Doctor research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Doctor Knock”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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This entry incorporates text from “Doctor Knock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.