Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin, The History of the Count de Comminge, translated by Charlotte Lennox

In 1756 Charlotte Lennox, already a celebrated novelistshe had just published her most renowned work, The Female Quixote, a year beforetranslated from the original French one of the most successful novels written by Madame Claudine Gérin, the marquise de Tencin, Mémoires du comte de Comminge (1735). At the time, Madame de Tencin was a controversial public figure, an intellectual woman and one of the most distinguished salonnières in eighteenth-century France. Although Tencins name as the authoress of the novel was kept secret until after her death, notwithstanding the outstanding success of her Mémoires, Charlotte Lennox knew that the novel had been penned by a woman and decided to translate it and later serialize it in her feminist magazine The Ladys Museum, a periodical wholly devoted to womens literary and cultural education. Lennoxs translation of Tencins short novel is here reprinted for the first time after two centuries with critical notes and an introduction, in an edition that takes into account a close comparison between Lennoxs translation and Madame de Tencins original French version, and analyses all the variations and addenda that appeared in Lennoxs own version of The History of the Count de Comminge. See more