Gotowa bibliografia na temat „Women authors, French – 18th century – Biography”

The article gives an analysis of the first Russian translation of Abelard and Héloïse’s letters (The Collection of Abelard and Héloïse’s Letters with the Life Description of These Miserable Lovers) made by A.I. Dmitriev in 1783 from Count Bussy-Raboutin’s French retelling. A comparative analysis of Dmitriev’s translation with the original text shows the conventional character of their connection. Following Bussy, Dmitriev not always sticks to the Latin original even in the main storylines. Even if he retains the canvas of the original medieval text, he supplements it with countless details: a portrait of a lover, a tear-drenched letter, mad passion. A similar transformation takes place with the Historia Calamitatum in the retelling made by Augustus von Kotzebue. In prefaces both authors designate their works as “female” reading. The interest in the story of two lovers is probably caused by the recent release of J.-J. Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise. The choice of material, the nature of its adaptation, the appeal to women and the circumstances of the publication of Dmitriev’s translation and Kotzebue’s retelling demonstrate the commitment of these authors to sentimentalism, which explains their desire to cause tears in the eyes of their readers.

The article gives an analysis of the first Russian translation of Abelard and Héloïse’s letters (The Collection of Abelard and Héloïse’s Letters with the Life Description of These Miserable Lovers) made by A.I. Dmitriev in 1783 from Count Bussy-Raboutin’s French retelling. A comparative analysis of Dmitriev’s translation with the original text shows the conventional character of their connection. Following Bussy, Dmitriev not always sticks to the Latin original even in the main storylines. Even if he retains the canvas of the original medieval text, he supplements it with countless details: a portrait of a lover, a tear-drenched letter, mad passion. A similar transformation takes place with the Historia Calamitatum in the retelling made by Augustus von Kotzebue. In prefaces both authors designate their works as “female” reading. The interest in the story of two lovers is probably caused by the recent release of J.-J. Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise. The choice of material, the nature of its adaptation, the appeal to women and the circumstances of the publication of Dmitriev’s translation and Kotzebue’s retelling demonstrate the commitment of these authors to sentimentalism, which explains their desire to cause tears in the eyes of their readers.

Anne-Thérèse Marguenat de Courcelles, Marquise or Madame de Lambert was the author of a significant published work, dealing with pregnant themes and concepts that are consistent with philosophical thought and literary culture in France in the 18th century. Ideas and sources that characterize her writing were mapped – namely the concept of taste; studies dedicated to it in the 19th and early 20th centuries, compared to most recent ones. Highlights are arguments in favor of a critical and “aware” education of women, reflections on moral philosophy and aesthetic considerations based on a plethora of authors from Greece to their contemporaries. She addressed the societal / intellectual phenomenon of the Salon and the Salonières that directed them in the 18th century, inquiring about: common denominators and / or deviations; mutual dependencies; conceptual nuances and repercussions, weighted in the context of feminist studies. Therefore, exclusive characteristics are listed in terms of posture, status and performance. In her Bureau d’ Esprit (1710-1732) “new” ideas of philosophical, literary, moral impact and under the aegis of poetic mediations fermented. Attention was paid to the singularities of her aesthetics and writing of an “epistolary” typology that was intended for her own children. It is finally thought-how much, how and if-her particularities and circumstances had repercussions / contributed to the understanding and evaluation of her work in an academic context and, also, to a French proto-feminist culture.

The article systematizes data about the number of St. Petersburg foreign population in the first half of the 18th century, for the first time cites quantitative and qualitative indicators characterizing the religious, national and social composition of its foreign diaspora. The materials for the statistical reconstruction were the results of the analysis of the St. Petersburg Catholic and Protestant parish registers and the foreigners' databases created on the basis of these church books. To identify demographic structures, the authors used the methods of descriptive statistics and comparative analysis of statistical indicators, and to determine the number of foreigners (“inozemtsy”), they used the method of reconstructing values using constant coefficients expressing the ratio of the adult believers' number to the sum of church rites for a certain time period. As a result, they found that the greatest concentration of foreigners (at the level of 10-13%) in St. Petersburg was observed in the Petrine era, and under Anna Ioannovna and Empress Elizabeth Petrovna their share fell to 6-7%. The number of foreigners was a relatively constant value and amounted to about 4 thousands adult men and women at the end of the reign of Peter the Great, and about 4-5 thousand people of both sexes in the 1730s and 1740s. As parts of the foreign population, the authors separately took into account groups of Germans, French, Italians, Poles, Dutch people, Finns, Swedes, Armenians, Tatars, and other nationalities. The authors publish the results of a special study, during which the size of various religious groups of St. Petersburg residents was determined - such as Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, believers of the Armenian Apostolic Church. They substantiate the conclusion that initially it was not Germans, as is traditionally considered, but Swedes and Finns that prevailed among the foreigners of St. Petersburg, and only by the middle of the 18th century the Germans became the most common group of foreigners, accounting for about half of their number. The largest social stratum of the foreign population in the city was the craft-working (future petty-bourgeois), they included masters and apprentices of the guild craft, artisans, all kinds of civilian specialists and persons who were in service. In the 1730s, this layer of Petersburgians incorporated about three thousand foreigners of both sexes, they made up a significant percentage of the commercial and industrial population of the city and strengthened the stratum of Posadsky residents. Turning to the questions of the socioprofessional composition of the St. Petersburg foreign society of the first half of the 18th century, the authors came to the conclusion that the confessional factor affected the choosing of the type of activity by foreigners.

Statement of the problem. Etienne Ozi stands out as a bassoonist due to his significant creative achievements in various spheres of his multifaceted activities. As a bassoonist soloist, he successfully debuted in the “Concerts Spirituels” and for more than two decades was actively performed in front of Parisians in the best halls of the capital. An equally significant achievement of Ozі as a teacher was the preparation of the first instructional manual for the specialists “Nouvelle méthode de basson adoptue par le Conservatoire” (1803), which remained the main official publication of the Paris Conservatory for many years. The composer’s work also became an important part of the bassoon repertoire, which was actively used by him and his students in performing and teaching activities. Despite the importance of E. Ozi’s contribution to all spheres of bassoon art, the artist’s multifaceted creative activity still has not been properly assessed by modern researchers and requires a more detailed study. Recent research and publications. Among the works of domestic scientists, there are hardly any publications dedicated to E. Ozi’s creative activity. An outstanding Ukrainian musician, teacher and scientist V. M. Apatsky (2017) in his fundamental reference publication «Bassoon from A to Z» covers only individual episodes of the musician’s biography. The figure of the French artist is considered more deeply by foreign researchers, among which it is necessary to single out the dissertation and monograph of H. E. Griswold «Etienne Ozi (1754–1813): Bassoonist, Teacher, and Composer» (1979), in which E. Ozi’s work is revealed in sufficient detail. However, over the forty-year period of its existence, a certain updating of historical materials took place, which requires clarification and correction of some facts. Among the latest publications, which in one way or another highlight E. Ozi’s work, it is worth mentioning O. Tiffou’s monograph «The French Bassoon in the 19th Century. Theory and Repertoire» (2022) and Á. D. Moreno’s thesis «Bassoon Playing in Perspective. Character and Performance Practice from 1800 to 1850» (2013). In each of the studies, the authors partly consider individual aspects of the musician’s creative work according to the chosen research direction. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to identify the main directions of Etienne Ozi’s performance and his role in the process of formation of the French bassoon school of the late 18th – early 19th centuries. The scientific novelty of the paper is determined by disclosing little-known facts of E. Ozi’s performance and his contribution to the formation of the French bassoon school. The study of E. Ozi’s performance required the use of a number of methods, such as historical to reveal the ideological and socio-economic factors of influence of the French Revolution on the development of musical art; historiography analyses to study and interpret musical and critical sources of the 18th century, chronological one to determine the time sequence of E. Ozi’s main concert performances; contextual and biographical approaches to highlight important stages of the artist’s creative work. Research results. The process of becoming Ozi as a performer is related to military brass bands, which, due to the lack of special musical educational institutions in France in the 18th century, remained the only place, where it was possible to learn to play wind instruments. Then, successful bassoon lessons under the leadership of the outstanding German bassoonist G. V. Ritter opened him the door to the concert stage. From 1779, he became an active performer-soloist of the prestigious “Concerts Spirituels” in the royal palaces. After the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy, E. Ozi continued a successful performing and teaching career in the Paris Conservatory, the orchestras of the Théâtre Italien, Théâtre Feydeau and Théâtre de la République et des Arts. An important achievement of the talented musician was a convincing victory in the competition of nominees for the post of soloist of the Grand Opéra Théâtre, which allowed him to take the most prestigious place for a bassoonist in France. Conclusion. E. Ozi is one of the first French musicians who presented the bassoon as a solo instrument and created a multi-genre concert repertoire for it. Regular performances at the most prestigious halls of Paris allowed him to confidently occupy a leading positions not only among the French, but also European bassoonists. Active performing activity of E. Ozi and his fruitful teaching practice at the Paris Conservatory had a crucial influence on the development of European bassoon art of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The article analyzes the history of female characters of French comics (bande dessinée). The study covers the period from the beginning of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, from the creation of albums telling about the history of Bécassina to the albums devoted to the adventures of Laureline. Analyzing the history of the development of female characters, the authors noted that the feminization of the French bande dessinée coincides with the chronology of the three stages of development of feminism. This circumstance is reflected in the specifics of female characters of comics, their nature, manner of action and gender relations. Moreover, the stories of female characters in the bande dessinée were a reflection of the social and cultural situation of a certain time, the change in the legal and civil status of a woman, the transformation of her role in society and the desire for real equality. The Bécassina’s character, although it fits into the framework of traditional gender relations and the social role of women in France at the beginning of the 20th century, at the same time reflects the beginning of a “rebellion”, an attempt to go beyond the assigned role, to know the outside world. The image of Lili in this context is more modern and more reflective of the post-war spirit of the “beautiful era” marked by the process of female emancipation. In any case, both characters have a choice to play a social role reserved for them by society, or to go beyond the patriarchal framework. In fact, this is the first bright characters bande dessinée, embarked on the path of emancipation. The second wave of feminism contributes to the evolution of female characters bande dessinée. The heroines of the comic books of the 1960—1970s reflect the results of the sexual emancipation of the post-war decades. This can be seen in the Barbarella way, but also in the behavior and lifestyle of Adèle (despite placing her in a completely different historical context). Unlike Bécassina and Lili, they are no longer constrained by the framework of traditional patriarchal relations, social and cultural conformism, expressing a desire to change the world. Finally, to the period of the third wave of feminism, we can attribute two albums telling about the adventures of Isa and the cosmic adventures of Laureline. As in the case of Adèle, the modern character of Isa, transferred to the context of the 18th century, introduces a modern interpretation of the issues of slavery, sexism and male domination. In the albums of the series “Valerian and Laureline”, the female character Laureline first becomes the central figure of the series, which allows us to speak about the end of the feminization of bande dessinée.

The paper presents the collection and analysis of the folklore adaptations of Maria Zubova's sentimental romance “I am going away into the desert” in the 19th and 20th centuries. The transformation of the author's work in folk song and theatre culture demonstrates a complex interaction between folklore and book poetry. The biography of the author, a representative of the artistic milieu and one of the few female poets of the late 18th century, is reflected in some journal sources (“Materials for the History of Russian Female Authors” by M. N. Makarov) and fiction sources (“Russian Women of New Times” by D. L. Mordovtsev) which confirm possible authorship of the poetess. The study highlights stylistic features of love, spiritual and prison lyrics, as well as the work of folk theatre, which uses the text under study. Women's love songs, including choral songs, vary the motif of infidelity, transform the spiritual meaning of the image of the desert into a symbol of conjugal loneliness. In an Old Believer environment, the work was included in spiritual songs developing a motif of renunciation of the secular life in the wilderness. Researcher P. A. Bessonov discusses the devastating impact of “pseudo-folk” song on Russian spiritual culture. Echoes of the sentimental romance may also be found in the prison lyrics of the 20th century collected from the Siberian narrator I. K. Beketov. The final part of the study deals with the folk drama “King Maximilian”, where the cited text appears as a precedent for the Russian culture, which is proved later by its active use in numerous works of fiction.

Résumé: Louise d’Épinay, Anne-Thérèse de Lambert ou Marie Rabutin Chantal, plus connue sous le nom de Madame de Sévigné, sont des auteures dont la réception marqua un tournant au sein des cercles les plus élitistes de l’Espagne du XVIIIe siècle, et plus particulièrement pour les lectures qui étaient celles des femmes espagnoles de l’époque. Des lectures qui, depuis des temps immémoriaux, étaient caractérisées par une tendance morale et religieuse notoire, ainsi que par le martèlement des valeurs traditionnelles et patriarcales inculquées dès le plus jeune âge au genre féminin. Pour toutes ces raisons, ce travail s’intéressera à la fortune littéraire et à la réception de ces trois pédagogues françaises en Espagne, ainsi qu’à la traduction de leurs œuvres, à leur influence sur certaines intellectuelles espagnoles de l’époque et aux différentes versions qui en furent publiées tout au long de de la période des Lumières en Espagne. Mots clés: France-Espagne, XVIIIe siècle, pédagogie, traduction, femmes. _________________________ The women’s Studies of the Age of Enlightenment in Spanish letters: Louise d’Épinay, Anne-Thérèse de Lambert and Marie de Rabutin-Chantal (Madame de Sévigné). Abstract: The Spanish reception of authors such as Louise d’Épinay, Anne-Thérèse de Lambert or Marie Rabutin Chantal, better known as Madame de Sévigné, had a before and after in the most elite circles of the Eighteenth century Spain and especially in the readings of Enlightenment Hispanic women. Readings, which from time immemorial, were characterized by a flagrant religious morality and by the continual repetition of traditional and patriarchal values, imposed on the feminine gender from an early age. For all this, this work will focus on the literary fortune and the Spanish reception of these three French pedagogues, as well as their translations, their influence on some Spanish intellectuals of the time and the different versions published throughout Hispanic Lights. Keywords: France-Spain, 18th century, pedagogy, translation, women.

Florian contribuyó en mayor medida que cualquier otro traductor a la gloriosa fortuna de Cervantes en Francia. Es fundamental lo pastoril/campesino en Florian. Una corriente de la crítica actual afirma que la gran boga del género durante los primeros años de la Revolución no representa el deseado regreso del Antiguo Régimen que se ha supuesto, sino que miran los autores –asustados pero esperanzados- hacia un futuro constituido por lo mejor tanto del pasado como del futuro. Así nos encontramos en Florian ante un curioso revolucionario. Abundan los pasajes que reducen las alusiones a las proezas violentas de los caballeros como los que ensanchan la atención dedicada a las actividades amorosas. En el retrato que se ofrece de la mente femenina, representada por la Marcela cervantina, la idea principal de su auto-defensa no es ninguna rebelión contra las expectativas masculinas, sino una reivindicación como pastora autónoma de los derechos humanos de todos y todas proclamados por la Revolución Francesa. Para Florian, los fingidos pastores y pastoras no representaban tanto una lírica convención literaria como unos modélicos portadores de valores fundamentales de una sociedad en procelosa travesía.PALABRAS CLAVELa revolución filosófica del XVIII, idealización francesa de Cervantes, valores aristocráticos y campesinos, los derechos de las mujeres. Florian, more than any other translator, contributed to the glorius reputation of Cervantes in France. In Florian´s thinking there is a basic pastoral and peasant element in the Revolution. A current within present historical criticism maintains that the great popularity of this genre then does not represent a longed-for return of the Old Regime, as has been assumed, but rather that authors –frightened but hopeful- looked forward to a future grounded in the best of both a nostalgic past as well as an optimistic view of the future. From this perspective we find Florian today to be a surprising revolutionary. There are abundant passages that cut back references to knights’ violent deeds. Similarly, in the portrait offered of the feminine mind, represented by Cervantes’ Marcela, the main tenant of her self-defense is not any rebellion against male expectations, but rather the assertion by an autonomous shepherdess of the human rights of everyone, men and women, proclaimed by the French Revolution. For Florian, these feigned shepherds and shepherdesses do not represent so much a lyrical literary convention as worthy representatives of the basic values of a society that finds itself adrift on a stormy crossing.KEY WORDSThe 18th-century philosophical revolution, French idealization of Cervantes, aristocratic and peasant values, women’s rights.

Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. 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On account of their supposed link to nature, women in post-revolutionary France were pigeonholed into a very restrictive sphere that centred around domesticity and submission to their male counterparts. Yet this thesis shows how a number of women writers – Cottin, Genlis, Krüdener, Souza and Staël – re-appropriate nature in order to reclaim the voice denied to them and to their sex by the society in which they lived. The five chapters of this thesis are structured to follow a number of critical junctures in the life of an adult woman: marriage, authorship, motherhood, madness and mortality. The opening sections to each chapter show why these areas of life generated particular problems for women at this time. Then, through in-depth analysis of primary texts, the chapters function in two ways. They examine how female novelists craft natural landscapes to expose and comment on the problems male-dominant society causes women to experience in France at this time. In addition, they show how female novelists employ descriptions of nature to highlight women's responses to the pain and frustration that social issues provoke for them. Scholars have thus far overlooked the natural settings within the works of female novelists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, a re-evaluation of these natural settings, as suggested by this thesis, brings a new dimension to our appreciation of the works of these women writers and of their position as critics of contemporary society. Ultimately, an escape into nature on the part of female protagonists in these novels becomes the means by which their creators confront the everyday reality faced by women in the turbulent socio-historical era which followed the Revolution.