Hutory of Europn Idear, Vol. 17, No. 2/3. pp. 319-323, 1993 Printed m Great Britain

0191-6599193 $6.00+0.00 c 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd

REVIEWS

REPUBLISHING FRENCH FEMINIST TEXTS

KAREN OFFEN*

Sur la noblesse et l’excellence du sexe fkminin, de sa pr%minence sur l’autre sexe, 1537, Henri Corneille Agrippa de Nettesheim, Preface by Marie-Josephe Dhavernas (Paris: CbtC-femmes editions, 1990), 144 pp., FF92.

EgalitiZ des bommes et des femmes, 1622, Marie de Gournay, Prtface de Milagros Palma (Paris: CBt&femmes itditions, 1989), 136 pp., FF82.

Opinions de femmes de la veille au lendemain de la RCvolution Francaise, PrCface de Genevigve Fraisse (Paris: C6tC-femmes Cditions, 1989), 176 pp., FF92.

Eve dans l’bumanith, 1868, Maria Deraismes, PrCface de Laurence Klejman (Paris: CGt&femmes tditions, 1990), 230 pp., FF92.

A new Parisian publishing firm, c8te-femmes e’ditions, has performed a signal service for historians of European ideas by reprinting a series of landmark French contributions to the debate on the ‘woman question’. Long difficult of access even for scholars, much less the general public, these texts span the sixteenth to the late nineteenth centuries. Their republication will assure easy access to a new generation of readers fascinated by the long history of European controversy over the relations of the sexes.

The four attractive volumes under review provide a sampling of the series. Each volume contains one or more texts reprinted in its entirety. Each is briefly introduced (though not invariably set in historical context) by a contemporary feminist scholar. Appended is a bibliography of other publications by the author(s) and pertinent scholarly treatments (unfortunately, only those in French) of their lives and work. In some instances spelling and punctuation have been modernised to facilitate readability.

The remarkable itinerant scholar Henri Corneille Agrippa de Nettesheim lived from 1486 to 1535. This French edition of Agrippa’s text is dated 1537. Originally written (1509) and published (1529) in Latin as De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus, the work was dedicated to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands. Margaret was the daughter of Mary of Burgundy (Agrippa had briefly held the chair of Hebrew at the College of Dole in Burgundy) and Maximilian of Austria. The volume also contains Agrippa’s text, ‘Du Sacrement du mariage’, likewise dedicated to Princess Margaret.

The text of Agrippa’s tribute is extraordinary, even by twentieth century

*Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 943058640, U.S.A.

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