Contes. Mademoiselle de Lussan: Les Veillées de Thessalie (review)

This collection represents the thirteenth volume of the Bibliothèque des Génies et des fées series dedicated to providing modern critical editions of tales included in the 40-volume Cabinet des fées (1785–89). Earlier volumes in the series covered the classical tales of the 1690s and the oriental tale of the early eighteenth century. Making accessible lesser known authors such as Madame Levesque, Madame de Gomez, Mademoiselle de Lussan and Madame de Lintot, this volume represents an important contribution to the field of fairy-tale studies in the ways that it potentially challenges our conceptions of the history of the genre. As stated in the introduction, these authors for the most part were not writing within the context of the aristocratic, worldly salons, as was the case with Madame d’Aulnoy and Madame de Murat. Stylistically they draw from the earlier conteuses, but they tend to pen somewhat more moralistic tales and move away from the privileging of noble identity, characteristic of the works of their predecessors. For instance, in Lussan’s Veillées de Thessalie, the context is a thoroughly domestic one in which mothers tell their daughters instructive stories while they sit in a circle doing domestic work. Although the setting is reminiscent of L’Astrée, these shepherdesses appear more peasant or bourgeois than aristocratic in their appreciation of hard work and domestic skills. In Gomez’s ‘Jean de Calais’ and Mademoiselle Falque’s ‘Cutchuc ou le géant puni’, men of merchant backgrounds become kings due to their virtue and industriousness, ideologically recalling the tales of Perrault rather than those penned by the women writers of the 1690s. In the tales of Lintot, who may have frequented the salon of Madame du Chatelet, rank is deemed unimportant while virtue and sincerity are privileged over any worldly qualities. Whereas scholars usually view Madame Leprince de Beaumont as the initiator of the pedagogical, bourgeois fairy tale, we might consider these authors as important mediators between earlier aristocratic tales and later tales extolling bourgeois values. With the questioning of rank and the valorisation of industry and in some cases domesticity, these tales are marked by the rising tide of Enlightenment culture. Though the works of some of these authors seem derivative, the texts together nevertheless represent an interesting intersection of influences, blending aspects from the early conteuses, the oriental tale, travel literature and literature from Antiquity. Each section of the book provides a short biography of the author, a framework for reading each tale and a short bibliography. The end of the volume includes a very useful summary of each of the tales. This volume is a welcome addition to fairy-tale scholarship, filling a gap in our knowledge about essential primary texts that contribute to our overall understanding of the history of the genre.