- English
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About this book
This engrossing narrative recounts the story of Jane de La Vaudère (née Jeanne Scrive), a prolific and celebrated writer of France's Belle Époque. Interweaving biography and literary analysis, Sharon Larson examines the ways in which La Vaudère adapted her persona to shifting literary trends and readership demands—and how she created and profited from controversy.
Relatively unknown today, La Vaudère published more than forty novels, poetry collections, and dramatic works as well as hundreds of shorter pieces. A controversial figure who was known as a plagiarist, La Vaudère attracted the attention of the public and of her peers, who caricatured her in literary periodicals and romans à clef. Most notably, La Vaudère claimed to have written the Rêve d'Egypte pantomime, whose 1907 production at the Moulin Rouge featured a kiss between Missy and Colette that led to riots and the suspension of future performances. Larson scrutinizes the ensemble of these various media constructions, privileging La Vaudère's self-representation in interviews and advertisements, and brings to light her agency in creating an image that captivated public attention and boosted sales of her writings.
This volume probes the quandaries of scholarship seeking to responsibly recover lost female voices and makes a long-overdue contribution to nineteenth-century French literary studies.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. The Makings of a Biography
- 2. Becoming Jane de La Vaudère
- 3. La Vaudère’s Plagiarism: Subversion Through Copy
- 4. The Plagiarized Plagiarist: Missy de Morny, Colette, and the Scandal of Rêve d’Égypte
- 5. Deciphering La Vaudère’s “Fierce” Feminism
- 6. Driving into the Future: The Château de La Vaudère and Continued Legacies
- Notes
- Jane de La Vaudère: A Comprehensive Bibliography
- Works Cited
- Index