Histoire de la Marquise

Francois-Timoleon de Choisy was a French author. He was an influential figure in the seventeenth-century French ecclesiastical community. Marie-Jeanne L'Heritierwas a French writer in the seventeenth century.L'Heritier was a defender of women's writing and a significant writer in the fairy tale genre. Charles Perrault was a seventeenth-century French writer and a member of the Academie francaise. Perrault's stories have been influential in developing the fairy tale as a literary genre. Joan DeJean's books reflect her areas of research: the history of women's writing in France (Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France); the history of sexuality (Fictions of Sappho, 1546-1937); the development of the novel (Literary Fortifications; Libertine Strategies); and the cultural history and the material culture of late 17th- and early 18th-century France (Ancients against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siecle; The Essence of Style; The Age of Comfort).

The text has many interesting applications in the undergraduate and graduate classrooms. The crossed-dress life that the characters share offers a fascinating, unconventional approach to court culture of seventeenth-century France, as well as to thorny issues of contemporary society. Joan DeJean provides an excellent introduction that places the appeal of the text firmly within a historical perspective. --Harriet Stone, Washington University