Letters: Volume 112
A Bilingual Edition
Will be published approx. on 22. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-64959-131-9 (ISBN)
Description
The first translated collection of Hortense Mancini's correspondence.
During the seventeenth century, Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin (1646-99), became an icon of women's emancipation. In 1668, she shocked Europe when she fled her coercive husband and began a nomadic exile. Her notoriety increased in 1675 with the publication of her memoir-one of the first to appear in French by a woman-and was later magnified by her stint as the royal mistress of Charles II of England and by her establishment of a freethinking salon in London. As a salonniere, an exile, and a litigant fighting for legal separation from her husband, Mancini's letters were a means of connection, collusion, and survival as well as cultural collaboration. Collected and translated here for the first time, this correspondence charts her struggle for autonomy in her own words.
During the seventeenth century, Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin (1646-99), became an icon of women's emancipation. In 1668, she shocked Europe when she fled her coercive husband and began a nomadic exile. Her notoriety increased in 1675 with the publication of her memoir-one of the first to appear in French by a woman-and was later magnified by her stint as the royal mistress of Charles II of England and by her establishment of a freethinking salon in London. As a salonniere, an exile, and a litigant fighting for legal separation from her husband, Mancini's letters were a means of connection, collusion, and survival as well as cultural collaboration. Collected and translated here for the first time, this correspondence charts her struggle for autonomy in her own words.
Reviews / Votes
"A historical figure who has long fascinated audiences, Hortense Mancini has been subject to caricature and sensationalist coverage by her contemporaries and also by subsequent historians and biographers. Nicholson's serious account of her life and works will help counter these trends and provide reliable material for further study. Assiduously collating this fairly small but fascinating body of writing, scattered as it is across different countries and continents in libraries, private collections, archives, auction catalogs, and in books where the letters were attributed to other authors, Nicholson shows how Mancini's writing can provide a fruitful example of the voice of a woman who moved in intellectual circles but who historians are reluctant to term "intellectual."" * Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, Professor Emerita of French literature, Department of Romance Studies, Boston University *More details
Series
Language
English
French
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
10 color plates
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
294 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64959-131-9 (9781649591319)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Hortense Mancini was Duchess of Mazarin and the author of a memoir and many letters. Annalisa Nicholson is a British Academy Research Fellow at King's College London. She is the author of A Salon-in-Exile: Hortense Mancini and the French Diaspora in Restoration London as well as articles on Charles de Saint-Evremond and Madeleine de Scudery.
Content
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Other Voice
Hortense Mancini's Story
A Life in Letters
The Exiled Epistoliere
The Making of an Intellectual
Note on the Text and Translations
Letters
Early Years and Marriage
Exile in Europe
Letters "in the Name of Mancini"
Final Years
Undated Letters
Partial and Auctioned Letters
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Other Voice
Hortense Mancini's Story
A Life in Letters
The Exiled Epistoliere
The Making of an Intellectual
Note on the Text and Translations
Letters
Early Years and Marriage
Exile in Europe
Letters "in the Name of Mancini"
Final Years
Undated Letters
Partial and Auctioned Letters
Bibliography
Index