The Parisian Worlds of Frédéric Chopin by William G. Atwood (review)

1 1 6 Women in French Studies extreme right wing in its various forms: the Vichy government, the Dreyfus Affaire, and more recently by the Front National with Le Pen at the helm. Similar to a number of the other contributors to this collection, Leibovici suggests the malleability ofJoan's image according to the political climate of the moment. This collection is a wonderful resource for students and scholars of Joan and the Hundred Years' War between England and France. It provides a culturally diverse cross-comparison of the multiple interpretations and representations of one of the most important figures in French as well as European history. Lorie Sauble-OttoThe University of Northern Colorado 19™-Century French Literature William G Atwood. The Parisian Worlds of Frédéric Chopin. New Haven , CT. : Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN : 0-300-07773. Pp. 416. $35.00. The Parisian Worlds ofFrédéric Chopin immerses the reader in the Paris of the 1830s and 1840s. It is a very amusing bath. Devoting chapters to Louis Philippe, English influences, the salons, the opera, the art world, the theatre world, the Polish community, the world of literature, médecine, utopias , Bohemia and the Demimonde, and the legend of Napoléon, Atwood systematically explores each, describing its major characters and analyzing its events and trends. These are illustrated by charming anecdotes taken from Chopin's correspondence, George Sand's correspondence, or Thackery's The Paris Sketchbook, and Mrs. Trollope's Paris and the Parisians. Atwood, who has previously produced two books on Chopin, The Lioness and the Little One: The Liaison ofGeorge Sand and Frédéric Chopin (1980) and Fryderyk Chopin: Pianist from Warsaw (1987), was clearly intrigued by Galignani 's New Paris Guide (1841) which he calls "an AngloItalian guide to the French capital for the English-speaking tourist." One wonders whether this guide did not furnish the inspiration for Atwood's Parisian Worlds since the author uses it to introduce the reader to Paris of the 1 830s and 40s and returns to it in chapters six and seven. Although centered on Chopin, The Parisian Worlds of Frédéric Chopin provides a serious social history of Paris in the first half of the nineteenth century. All that is missing is the Parisian proletariat which receives a cursory nod in the chapter devoted to utopias. While there is no doubt that the book provides very entertaining reading to anyone interested in Paris or nineteenth-century France, Francophiles could wish that the author had privileged sources in French rather than the English ones. The underlying sub-text is "Chopin's Paris as seen by English people." In spite of its small inaccuracies, i.e., Georges Lubin's edition of George Sand's Correspondance is listed as having 9 volumes rather than 26 (butAtwood surely Book Reviews1 1 7 stopped reading when Chopin died), the book is a broad mural of Parisian manners, preferences, interests, preoccupations, and dreams in this period. This portrait of an era contains many curious little known facts. How many Americans realize that, before inventing the telegraph, Samuel F.B. Morse was an art student in Paris or that he, along with James Fenimore Cooper, helped Lafayette to raise money for displaced Poles after the fall of Warsaw to the Russians in 183 1? How many French people know that both Hector Berlioz and Alfred de Musset were destined for medical careers and abandoned them when faced with the horror of the dissecting room? This work shows evidence of being carefully researched from many sources, and one suspects that quite a few of the chapters could stand alone as an introduction to opera, theatre, or art, etc. in the nineteenth century. The only unifying theme for the disparate essays is the presence ofChopin in their midst. Nevertheless, the book is quite enjoyable and permits one to image s/ he is actually living in the Paris ofthe nineteenth century. Lucy M. SchwartzBuffalo State College (SUNY) Alison Finch. Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0-521-63186-6. Pp. 316. $57.47. Alison Finch's Women s Writing in Nineteenth-Century France is breathtaking in scope...