In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Note on References xiii The references to Montaigne’s text are from the edition by Albert Thibaudet and Maurice Rat, and references to the Essay number when necessary, are in roman numerals, followed by the page number. Quotations from Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes and the fragments in the Appendices are from the edition by Paul Vernière. Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne is quoted from the edition by Joan DeJean and Nancy K. Miller. For both these novels, references in parentheses give the letter number, when necessary, followed by a colon and the page number of these editions: an arabic numeral by itself is a page number. Voltaire’s L’Ingénu is quoted from the edition by Frédéric Deloffre and Jacques van den Heuvel. Claire de Duras’s Ourika is quoted from the edition by Joan DeJean and Margaret Waller. Any translations and emphases (except for the ones in the epigraphs, which are the authors’), are my own, unless indicated otherwise. ...

Share