Travels into Spain

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy (1652–1705) was the first Frenchwoman to write, publicize, and publish, in 1691, the account of her travels into Spain as an independent woman. Considered the authority on things Spanish for nearly two centuries, until positivist historiographers labelled it fake, her Travels can now be appreciated for her ironic female gaze on realities concealed from male travelers and her unabashedly female and often playful voice. D’Aulnoy casts a unique light on gender relations, women’s condition, cultural biases, national rivalries, and religious superstitions at a critical time in early modern cultural and literary history.

In spite of her immense literary talent, her success as an author, and an enormous corpus of works, Mme d’Aulnoy was overlooked until the end of the twentieth century. Fortunately for the contemporary reader, her work (both in French and in English) is now reinserted among the great reads of the late seventeenth century. Gabrielle Verdier’s previous articles, and the present volume of the fifteen translated letters constituting her Travels into Spain, have greatly remedied that neglect. In this volume, Verdier guides the reader through the intricacies of d’Aulnoy’s tumultuous existence and her diverse, and at times, controversial oeuvre, while revealing d’Aulnoy’s engaging writing style, and conveying the originality of her presentation of worlds and customs out of the realm of the experiences of women in France.

-Henriette Goldwyn, Professor Emerita, Department of French Literature, Thought & Culture, New York University

GABRIELLE M. VERDIER is professor emerita of French at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Interested in marginalized and female writers, she has written extensively on Charles Sorel, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Ninon de Lenclos, Staal-Delaunay, Olympe de Gouges, d’Aulnoy, and others.

REVIEWS

History: Reviews of New Books 51.5 (2023): 107–109. Reviewed by Nieves Romero-Díaz.
"‘Love was born in Spain’: The Importance of the Female Gaze in a ‘Gripping’ Travelogue." Times Literary Supplement No. 6249 (January 6, 2023). Reviewed by Sara Wheeler. 
Women in French Studies 31 (2023), pp. 163–164. Reviewed by Nathalie Hester.