Selected Philosophical, Scientific, and Autobiographical Writings

Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville combined fierce intellectual ambition with the proper demeanor of the wife of a leading magistrate. Bemoaning her lack of a formal education in childhood, as an adult she read widely, studied languages, and sought out mentors among the scientific elite of the day. Always publishing anonymously, her works included moralist philosophy, scientific and literary translations, original scientific research, fiction, and history. Recently, a trove of unpublished essays and autobiographical writings from her final years, long thought to have been lost, has come to light, revealing her as a writer of insight, wit, and feeling. Edited and translated by Julie Candler Hayes The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, volume 58

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Part One: Published Works, 1756–1783 23 Dedicatory epistle and translator’s note 25 Discourse on Chemistry 30 Discourse on Osteology 75 Thoughts and Moral Reflections, excerpts 84 Treatise on Friendship, excerpts 102 Discourse on Putrefaction 113 Preface to The Life of Marie de Médicis 126 Preface to The History of François II 134 Part Two: Late Manuscripts, 1801–1805 141 Thoughts, Reflections, and Anecdotes, excerpts 143 Bibliography 231 Index 241

About the Author :
Julie Candler Hayes is Professor of French and Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her most recent book is Translation, Subjectivity, and Culture in France and England, 1600-1800 (2009); she is currently working on a monograph about seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women moral philosophers. Julie Candler Hayes is Professor of French and Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her most recent book is Translation, Subjectivity, and Culture in France and England, 1600-1800 (2009); she is currently working on a monograph about seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women moral philosophers.

Review :
In her edition and translation of writings by Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville (1720–1805), Julie Candler Hayes provides an important look at a remarkable woman writer, thinker, and scientist. D’Arconville was a “true woman of the Enlightenment” — a woman of wide-ranging interests, concerned with moral, societal, and philosophical issues, such as the role of self-love (amour-propre), perspectives on history, and the value of friendship versus marriage. Her published writings are extremely significant, but perhaps even more intriguing are the recently rediscovered manuscript texts that she wrote late in life, offering a glimpse into the mind of this fascinating woman who was married at a very early age, took charge of her own education, and outlived the Revolution. —Sharon Diane Nell Professor of French and Dean of the School of Humanities, St. Edward’s University "In her edition and translation of writings by Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville (1720–1805), Julie Candler Hayes provides an important look at a remarkable woman writer, thinker, and scientist. D’Arconville was a 'true woman of the Enlightenment' of wide-ranging interests, concerned with moral, societal, and philosophical issues, such as the role of self-love (amour-propre), perspectives on history, and the value of friendship versus marriage. Her published writings are extremely significant, but perhaps even more intriguing are the recently rediscovered manuscript texts that she wrote late in life, offering a glimpse into the mind of this fascinating woman who was married at a very early age, took charge of her own education, and outlived the Revolution."