Saint-Evremond: A Voice from Exile - Unpublished Letters to Madame De Gouville and the Abbe De Hautefeuille 1697-1701

This is a selection of personal correspondence from the late 17th century, from the French thinker Saint-Evremond to Madame de Gouville and the Abbe de Hautefeuille. Saint-Evremond spent much of his life in exile in London, written at the end of his life and despite his material difficulties at the time these letters display his joy not only in a rediscovered friendship but in life itself.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements, Introduction, The Letters, Concordance, Bibliographical Note, Select Bibliography, Index

Review :
A particularly full and illuminating account of the life and thought of [Potts s] elusive subject... The letters afford a kind of coda to the biography that leads into them.--Richard Parish "French Studies, LVIII.1, 2004, 105-6 "" In the introduction to this little book, Denys Potts gives an excellent introduction to Saint-Evremond s career and writings... Most of the space in the letters is given over to financial details of a Balzacian kind, but in between these come flashes of the wit and man-about-town, nostalgic moments, thoughts about literature, reflections on age.--Peter France"Times Literary Supplement" (11/01/2002)" These letters seek help in pressing for private annuity payments long overdue. Those to his fellow-Norman Mme de Gouville are embroidered with self-ironic galanteries and with jokes about the tight-fistedness of their province. Letters to the abbe, an amateur scientist and inventor, playfully evoke debt-recovery in terms of Cartesian mechanics.--Robin Howells "Huguenot Society Proceedings, 28.1, 2003, 121 "" This book is a delight on a number of levels... The exemplary introduction and notes by Denys Potts offer far more than one might expect: not only do we learn about the contents of the letters themselves, but we are also given an erudite yet highly readable account of Saint-Evremond s life and his importance as both thinker and stylist... Invaluable documentary material for Saint-Evremond scholars and a fine introduction to a master of the epistolary art.--Nicholas Hammond "Modern Language Review, 98.4, 2003, 986-7 "" This volume also provides a very useful introduction, which gives an overview of Saint-Evremond s life and ideas and the context in which the letters were written.--unsigned notice "Forum for Modern Language Studies, XL.2, April 2004, 238 ""