Catholicism and Children's Literature in France

Sophie Heywood is Lecturer in French at the University of Reading.

A masterful essay...it will be impossible to claim knowledge of the comtesse de Ségur if you have not read Sophie Heywood’s bookRémi Saudray, review in Cahiers Séguriens, 10 (2012) pp. 161-167.Heywood has made Ségur a figure of considerable interest to historians, not just biographers or literary scholars.Sarah A. Curtis, French History, 2012Winner of the 2012 University of Reading Research Endowment Trust Fund Best Research Output PrizeThe strength of this informative and insightful book is its ability to contextualize the life story and the writings of the comtesse de Ségur without losing sight of the complexities that both present. Neither Ségur’s life nor her writings were always consistent, yet in showing how they intersected with new ideas about childhood, a militant Catholic revival, new publishing strategies, and shifting notions of gender, Heywood hasmade Ségur a figure of considerable interest to historians, not just biographers or literary scholars.Sarah A. Curtis, French History, vol 26, no 4, December 2012

• List of abbreviationsList of illustrationsIntroduction1. Life stories2. Nobles, saints, and delinquents: constructions of childhood in the collected works of Madame de Ségur 3. The tribulations of an author: writing, censorship and the reading public under the Second Empire4. The comtesse and the culture wars5. Model girls and divine women: reading the comtesse de Ségur ConclusionAppendix I: The collected works of the comtesse de Ségur Appendix II: EditionsSelect bibliographyIndex