Delphine

Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Madame de StaëlProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 1.6M words
Chapters: 161

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Delphine by Madame de StaëlAuthor: Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1766-1817,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 1, 2005

Editor's review

Delphine is an epistolary novel by Madame de Staël, published in 1802; this is Project Gutenberg's French-language edition. Its value is not only literary-historical: tracing the fates of two women in post-Revolutionary French society, it discusses marriage, reputation, law, and women's education, with a distinctly late-Enlightenment argumentative temper. The epistolary form interweaves emotion and ideas; characters often defend themselves at length in letters, letting readers feel the intellectual tone of the period's salon circles. The electronic edition is easy to search and read alongside other texts, making it suitable as supplementary material for courses in French literature, women's writing, or post-Revolutionary social history. Note that the original is in French and quite long, with a slow narrative pace; first-time readers should approach it as an epistolary work requiring patience rather than a plot-driven novel.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers learning French who wish to encounter late-18th-century French epistolary prose in the original
Literature or history students studying women's circumstances and women's writing after the French Revolution
Readers interested in Madame de Staël and late-Enlightenment salon thought
Lovers of epistolary fiction willing to accept a slow narrative pace

Not a good fit for

General readers without French reading ability and without a parallel translation
Contemporary fiction readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced narration
Beginners seeking an introduction with guided reading and detailed notes

Reading tips

First grasp the plot outline in Chinese or an English translation, then return to the French original to reduce frustration.
Read letter by letter; after every few letters, note shifts in characters' positions and emotions.
Pay attention to the letters' discussions of marriage, reputation, and women's education, and set them against the post-Revolutionary social background.
Use the electronic edition's search function to trace differences in how the same character presents herself across letters.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or French?

This entry is Project Gutenberg's French-language edition; the text is in French, not a Chinese translation. If French is difficult, read it alongside an existing translation or introductory material.

Can I read this book without any French?

Reading the original directly will be demanding, since the long epistolary work involves extensive argument and period background. Readers without French are better off starting with a translation or a literary-history introduction before deciding whether to tackle the original.

Is this book suitable as historical material?

It can serve as literary material for understanding public opinion and women's issues after the French Revolution, but it is a novel, not a compilation of historical sources. Distinguish characters' views from the author's position and use it alongside historical background material.

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About the author

Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Madame de Staël Author · French (French-Swiss) · 1766–1817

Madame de Staël (born Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, 1766–1817) was a French woman writer, political publicist and salon host. Her novels Delphine and Corinne, or Italy trace women's emotions and destinies while also depicting social manners and foreign settings; her critical works On Literature and On Germany systematically introduced German thought and laid an important foundation for European Romantic theory. The library also holds six of her works, including On the Influence of Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and Nations, Ten Years' Exile and Signora Fantastici. Her Coppet salon gathered leading European intellectuals of the day, and her writing and intellectual exchange had a lasting influence on French and European literary currents in the early nineteenth century.