Pradon was born in Rouen and is the author of eight tragedies: Pyrame et Thisbé (1674) (see Pyramus and Thisbe), Tamerlan, ou la mort de Bajazet (1676), Phèdre et Hippolyte [fr] (1677), La Troade (1679), Statira (1680), Regulus (1688), Germanicus (1694) and Scipion (1697).
This rivalry was particularly intense when Pradon brought out his Phèdre et Hippolyte at the same time as Racine's Phèdre (the writers Donneau de Visé and Adrien-Thomas Perdou de Subligny both took Pradon's side), and throughout his life Pradon wrote several attacks on Boileau.
Pradon's plays have been largely denigrated by modern critics,[citation needed] both for his lack of imagination or historical awareness and his utter adherence to the three classical unities and the bienséances (proprieties) of French classical theatre [fr].
For example, to avoid depicting a stepmother in love with her stepson, Pradon made Phèdre merely Theseus' fiancée.
Pradon's 14th-century Mongol Tamerlan walks and acts like a gentleman of the 17th-century French court.