French Literature Reviews - 2026

Women Writers
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

To mark International Women's Day on March 8, 2007, Folio is launching a new series (Folio 2€) dedicated to women's literature from the 18th century to the present day: Femmes de lettres.

Madame Campan, Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie-antoinette (excerpts), folio no. 4519, 144 pp.
Madame de Genlis, La Femme auteur, folio no. 4520, 112 pp.
George Sand, Pauline, folio no. 4522, 144 pp.
Elsa Triolet, Les Amants d'Avignon, folio no. 4521, 144 pp.
Renée Vivien, La Dame à la louve, folio no. 5418, 144 pp.

Each of these titles has been introduced and edited by Martine Reid, Professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

The publication of affordable paperback series dedicated to historical and modern texts has long served a role in making works accessible to a wider public in France. Such publishing initiatives map out lineages of female authorship across successive literary epochs and aesthetic movements. These volumes place major figures alongside other authors, reflecting broader scholarly efforts within French literary studies to reconsider the canon and foreground the contributions of women to narrative prose, autobiography, and fiction.