Writing with a vengeance
Subtitle: the Countess de Chabrillan's rise from prostitution
By: Carol Mossman
Series: University of Toronto romance series
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9780802096913
Description: This book examines the life and works of a nineteenth-century French courtesan, Céleste Vénard, later the Countess de Chabrillan. A nortorious Paris courtesan, Chabrillan married into the nobility, taught herself to write (penning two series of memoirs) and, upon being widowed, wrote novels to support herself -- ten, between 1857 and 1885. These novels and memoirs constitute exceptional literary and historical documents, particularly as very few sex workers before the twentieth century have left written records of their lives.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-175) and index.
Table of contents: title: The wages of shame; title: Worlds apart: mapping prostitution and the demi-monde; title: Fictions of prostitution; title: La Sapho, or staging vengeance; title: Plotting exoneration; title: Chabrillan's final novels, or the uses of fiction.