Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman by Francine Du Plessix Gray is a beautiful book. I picked it up in McNally Jackson in Soho. Lovely. And the writing is, of course, equally fabulous.
What I love about bookstores are these types of discoveries. If McNally Jackson wasn’t such a gem of a store, and didn’t have interesting tables of books and little nooks to display staff favourites, then I would not have purchased this book or even known about it. Thank you McNally.
Madame de Stael was a legendary conversationalist. Schooled by her mother and well versed in the salon by the time she married, Madame de Stael was known for her intelligence, enthusiasm and eloquence, and natural conversation skills, unlike her mother’s, which were quite forced.
De Stael was passionate about politics, women’s rights and her father. The first part of the book details her childhood at the hands of her demanding mother and how she doted on her father, who was Louis XVI’s minister of finance. I just got into the section about her marriage, many affairs and motherhood then I misplaced my book! It’s lost somewhere in Florida so I have another on order from McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg (the parents of Sarah McNally, who runs McNally Jackson in Soho). Until then I shall have to wait to read about her battle of wills with Napoleon Bonaparte and the epic tales about her salon.
In the meantime, could everyone go find a gem in their local bookstore please. I would like them to remain in existence, both the gems and the bookstores.