Gray, Francine du Plessix. Madame de Stael: the First Modern Woman. Atlas, 2008. I'll be honest: First Modern Woman does not constitute what I would call a dream job. Someone had to step up, however, and—assuming royal and Ptolemaic women are off limits—one looks to Enlightenment Europe for volunteers. French residency if not nationality was a plus. A fortune was de rigueur. It helped to be an only child; generally one goes further in the absence of pesky male heirs. And what never hurts—arguably even today—is an adoring, intellectually inclined father. Such were the blessings showered on Germaine de Stael, and though I might argue that Mesdames du Chatelet and de Charrière challenge her title —and the subtitle of Francine du Plessix Gray's new biography—few have done as much with those advantages as Madame de Stael. Certainly no one caused as much trouble. . . .
Read the whole review here: http://www.slate.com/id/2201499/pagenum/all.
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