L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women

This edition offers a translation of two works by the seventeenth-century French Franciscan, Jacques Du Bosc: L’Honneste femme (1632-36) in selected passages and the Nouveau recueil des lettres de dames de ce temps (1635) in its entirety. Both of these texts articulate the theory and practice of the emerging ideal of honnêteté for women.

"I heartily recommend this translation and edition of the two works by Jacques Du Bosc. The introduction provides a solid, erudite entry to Du Bosc and his world, with a clear emphasis on the gender issues central to the Other Voice. Especially good is the detailed study of the reception of these works. Moreover, the translation is clear and readable. A great deal of work was required to transform the periodic sentences and paragraphs of seventeenth century French prose into an English work that is so readable and lucid for a contemporary reader who is not a specialist in the field. The long, informative titles to the essays and letters (already transparent in the table of contents) further situate material that can seem obscure to a contemporary reader. The informative notes, especially the biographical tags and the excellent use of Furetière to explore ambiguous or archaic phrases, illuminate a world that would otherwise seem opaque to many contemporary readers."

-Reverend John J. Conley, SJ, Knott Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Maryland

AURORA WOLFGANG is Professor of French at California State University, San Bernardino. She is author of Gender and Voice in the French Novel, 1730–1782 (Ashgate, 2004) and numerous articles on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women writers and feminist issues.

SHARON DIANE NELL is Professor of French and Dean of the School of Humanities at St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas. She is the author of numerous articles on topics that range from the early modern period to Proust. Her current research focuses on the development of French rococo style from seventeenth-century ideology.

REVIEWS
French History 29.4 (2015): 592–593. Reviewed by Anna Jenkin.
Renaissance & Reformation 38.3 (2015): 200–202. Reviewed by Pierre Cameron.
Renaissance Quarterly 68.3 (2015): 1067–1068. Reviewed by Rebecca Wilkin.