History 336: Sexual Revolutions in Modern Europe: Find Books

"In her first novel, Monsieur Venus, Rachilde created Raoule de Venerande, a Decadent heroine as depraved as she is resourceful and ingenious. The Marquise de Sade, published three years later, in 1887, has a female protagonist to rival Raoule in her relish for destruction and her passion for outrage. Like Rachilde herself, Mary Barbe is a cavalry officer's daughter. Barely in her teens, she is orphaned and taken to live with her elderly uncle, a man of science. As a girl in a family where only the male sex is prized, she is relegated to a life of dull seclusion in her attic room. But with the approach of womanhood, beauty, learning and an inordinate streak of ruthlessness give her the means to carve out a place in the world, and exact the cruel dues of a femme fatale." "The novel gives us a rare glimpse of female sexuality, explored not only from a decadent, but even more tellingly, from a woman's perspective."

A scandalous bestseller of mid-nineteenth-century France, translated here for the first time into English.

This study seeks to delve beyond the familiar image of Ellen Wilkinson as the leader of the Jarrow Crusade. It has attempted to unearth new evidence to provide a richer understanding of this figure who is remarkable in terms of her achievements, her acquaintances and her witnessing of history's great turning points. She was both a socialist and a feminist; at times, she described herself as a revolutionary.