Ducis came from a bourgeois family, rising through his position as secretary to several powerful figures of the court. He knew no English and thus was hampered from the start by having to work with the mediocre translations of two contemporaries, Pierre-Antoine de La Place and Pierre Le Tourneur. Aware of his uncomfortable position between an audience with specific tastes and a body of brilliant but largely unfamiliar works in an alien style, he attempted to compromise the plays, buying exposure for them by revising the texts and, in some cases, even by changing the catastrophes. Nevertheless, his adaptations have a certain vigorous eloquence.

Of Ducis's original tragedies, Oedipe chez Admète (1778; “Oedipus at the Home of Admetus”) and Abufar (1795) are considered his best; the first earned him election to the French Academy in succession, ironically, to Voltaire. His complete works, including his beautifully written letters, were edited and published by his friend François-Vincent Campenon (1818 and 1826).