Correspondance de Mme de Graffigny

Author: Mme de Graffigny

Volume: 15

Series: Correspondance de Mme de Graffigny Correspondences

Volume Editors: D. W. Smith

Publication Date: 2016

Pages: 528

ISBN: 978-0-7294-0969-8

Price: £110

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About

Les trois dernières années de la vie de Mme de Graffigny sont extrêmement mouvementées. Elle suit avec anxiété les péripéties de la guerre de Sept Ans, partage le désarroi général lors de l’attentat de Damiens, et témoigne de la disgrâce de certains de ses amis. Sur le plan littéraire, si la tragédie d’un de ses protégés remporte un succès triomphal, sa propre pièce, La Fille d’Aristide, subit un échec, et le Parlement s’apprête à condamner de nombreux ouvrages des philosophes. Enfin, elle souffre de plusieurs maladies qui amènent sa mort prématurée le 12 décembre 1758. Collaborateurs: Dorothy P. Arthur, Diane Beelen Woody, J. A. Dainard, E. A. Heinemann, Marie-Thérèse Inguenaud, L. C. Kerslake, Marie-Paule Powell

Reviews

French Forum

Fifteen volumes, the first of which appeared in 1985, have been published. They contain just over 2,500 letters, covering the final forty-two years of Graffigny’s life […]. Throughout, the Graffigny Project’s editorial team has maintained the highest standards and has done a remarkable job of making the letters accessible. Their notes have been consistently lucid, never intrusive, and always packed with essential information. All-important authors deserve such impeccable scholarly treatment. […] Graffigny’s passion for the world of writers and publishing never flagged: she remained to the end a carefully informed observer of ‘the business of Enlightenment’. […] She knew the most celebrated actors well; she and her friends had insider information on every new play and playwright. […] And last but hardly least, the ultimate volume of Graffigny’s correspondence paints a remarkably vivid picture of friendship. […] And above all they talked and talked – and they wrote letters. Graffigny’s correspondence gives the impression that 18th-century Paris was a golden age of friendship.

Studi Francesi

La fama di Madame de Graffigny è dovuta soprattutto alle Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747), romanzo epistolare in cui le tematiche sentimentali si fondono con la critica della società francese. D’altra parte, una corrispondenza che vede fra i destinatari alcuni dei nomi più celebri della cultura francese settecentesca (oltre a quelli citati, ricordiamo Rousseau, Marivaux, Prévost,Crébillon) non può che suscitare un vivo interesse fra gli studiosi e i cultori del secolo dei Lumi.