Resurrecting Jane de La Vaudère: Literary Shapeshifter of the Belle Époque

This engrossing narrative recounts the story of Jane de La Vaudère (née Jeanne Scrive), a prolific and celebrated writer of France’s Belle Époque. Interweaving biography and literary analysis, Sharon Larson examines the ways in which La Vaudère adapted her persona to shifting literary trends and readership demands—and how she created and profited from controversy.

Relatively unknown today, La Vaudère published more than forty novels, poetry collections, and dramatic works as well as hundreds...