My passion for 19th-century French art, literature, and social history was enkindled in academia, but when my doctoral research uncovered the remarkable story of a forgotten 19th-century courtesan, I set out on a career in biography. During the 19th century, the ‘woman question’ was marked by both radical change and fierce dispute. Based on careful research, my writing seeks to lift this history out of the dusty annals of academia and bring its characters and events vividly to life for the 21st-century reader. My books introduce real women, piecing their stories back together in intimate detail so that readers can really share their successes and frustrations.
I wrote...
The Mistress of Paris: The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret
Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was a celebrated 19th-century Parisian courtesan. She was painted by Édouard Manet and inspired Émile Zola, who immortalised her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumoured affairs with Napoleon III and the future Edward VII kept gossip columns full.
But her glamorous existence hid a dark secret: she was no comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid Paris backstreet. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress who possessed a small fortune, three mansions, fabulous carriages, and art the envy of connoisseurs across Europe. A consummate show-woman, she ensured that her life – and even her death – remained shrouded in just enough mystery to keep her audience hungry for more.
Every biographer needs a reliable social history, an authority that distils the essential, orders the chronology, and acts as a framework on which to pin all those facts. In his assured style, James F. McMillan artfully weaves the myriad strands of history into a seamless and engaging narrative. From prostitutes to housewives and from workers to salonières, the author spans the whole social spectrum to pinpoint not just what French women did, but why, and crucially, how their actions were received. The scrupulous research, swift pace, and crisp style make this comprehensive study a bible to anyone interested in the history of French women during the long 19th century.
France and Women, 1789-1914 is the first book to offer an authoritative account of women's history throughout the nineteenth century. James McMillan, author of the seminal work Housewife or Harlot, offers a major reinterpretation of the French past in relation to gender throughout these tumultuous decades of revolution and war. This book provides a challenging discussion of the factors which made French political culture so profoundly sexist and in particular, it shows that many of the myths about progress and emancipation associated with modernisation and the coming of mass politics do not stand up to close scrutiny. It also reveals…
No account of French women since the Revolution of 1789 would be complete without reference to this classic tale of a listless housewife turned adulterous thrill-seeker then suicide victim. Through his narrator and his characters, Flaubert offers a male perspective on the female condition in mid-19th-century France, exploring the way women were viewed, judged, pressured, and tempted. Even today, Madame Bovary remains a sobering lesson in the potentially devastating effects when expectation and reality diverge. In Emma’s case, the dreary monotony of everyday life fosters a ‘grass is always greener’ mentality which ultimately proves fatal. With her disappointment at marriage’s great anti-climax, her addiction to shopping and her insatiable quest for new sensations, Emma’s drama is at once historically revealing and uncomfortably timeless.
Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of a married woman's affair caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. Its heroine, Emma Bovary, is stifled by provincial life as the wife of a doctor. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations, the consequences are devastating. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for…
‘Father, except for murder and robbery, I’ve done everything.’ So confessed the notorious courtesan Liane de Pougy, and her diary offers a tantalising peek into the mind of a fast-living, turn-of-the-century ‘It’ girl. After a teen pregnancy, Liane was swiftly married, shot by her husband, then finally fled to Paris where she became a courtesan. Glamorous, forthright, and unashamedly vain, Liane turned herself into a fashion icon. A social butterfly among high society, Liane’s address book reads like a literary Who’s Who of the roaring 20s (Jean Cocteau, Marcel Proust, the Rothschilds, and the poet Max Jacob all featured). From her spicy affairs – with men and women – to her marriage to Romanian Prince Georges Ghika and ultimate taking of the veil, ‘Princess’ Liane’s candid revelations make an eye-opening and unexpectedly moving read.
A fascinating and provocative glimpse into the life of the legendary early twentieth-century courtesan--a Folies-BergFre dancer who became a princess and died a nun, details her many acquaintances including poet Max Jacob, Colette, and Marcel Proust, and vividly discusses her numerous sexual encounters with both men and women. Original.
Ladies, what would you take if you had to flee your home suddenly? Clothes? Food? Sentimental objects? How would you manage if you had your period when enemy soldiers took you prisoner?
These are the kind of blindsiding questions we catch ourselves asking as we read Anne Sebba’s engrossing study of the way French women lived and loved through the Second World War. Drawing on first-hand interviews with a range of remarkable women, Sebba’s skill lies in the way she focuses on intimate, everyday details to which we can all relate. The result is a book which reaches through time and makes us really feel these women’s predicament. Sensitive, passionate, and heart-wrenching, this vivid social history makes you see the war and its women from an entirely different perspective.
“Anne Sebba has the nearly miraculous gift of combining the vivid intimacy of the lives of women during The Occupation with the history of the time. This is a remarkable book.” —Edmund de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes
New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba explores a devastating period in Paris's history and tells the stories of how women survived—or didn’t—during the Nazi occupation.
Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked…
A dusty bundle of 150-year-old letters found in a deserted house in rural France forms the premise of this intriguing literary hybrid. Author Gillian Tindall beckons us to follow her on an enthralling, real-life detective story, as she uncovers the life and loves of the letters’ addressee, an obscure provincial innkeeper’s daughter named Célestine Chaumettte. As she pieces Célestine’s story together, Tindall breathes life back into a whole slice of history and a community now vanished. A rich cast of forgotten characters springs from the pages as we see, taste, and smell the many textures of rural society in 19th-century France, along with the seasons and cycles that governed it. This evocative, haunting account of a country girl’s experience and place within this world really is social history at its best.
Seven marriage proposals written to Celestine in the early 1860s, and carefully preserved by her, offer a glimpse of rural nineteenth century French life
Me and The Times offers a fresh perspective on those pre-internet days when the Sunday sections of The New York Times shaped the country’s political and cultural conversation. Starting in 1967, Robert Stock edited seven of those sections over 30 years, innovating and troublemaking all the way.
His memoir is rich in anecdotes and admissions. At The Times, Jan Morris threw a manuscript at him, he shared an embarrassing moment with Jacqueline Kennedy, and he got the paper sued for $1 million. Along the way, Rod Laver challenged Stock to a tennis match, he played a clarinet duet with superstar Richard Stoltzman, and he shared a Mafia-spiced brunch with Jerry Orbach.
Me and The Times: My wild ride from elevator operator to New York Times editor, columnist, and change agent (1967-97)
An intimate, unvarnished look at the making of the Sunday sections of The New York Times in their pre-internet heyday, back when they shaped the country’s political and cultural conversation.
Over 30 years, Robert Stock edited seven of those sections, innovating, and troublemaking all the way – getting the paper sued for $1 million, locking horns with legendary editors Abe Rosenthal and Max Frankel, and publishing articles that sent the publisher Punch Sulzberger up the wall.
On one level, his memoir tracks Stock’s amazing career from his elevator job at Bonwit Teller to his accidental entry into journalism to his…
Interested in
France,
Paris,
and
the French Revolution?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
France,
Paris,
and
the French Revolution.
