Diana Holmes is Professor of French at the University of Leeds, UK. She has published widely on French women writers, including Colette, Rachilde, Renée Vivien, and bestselling romantic authors of the Belle Epoque. Her recent publications include Rachilde – Decadence Gender and the Woman Writer (Berg, 2001), and she is working on a study of romance in 20th century France.

“…this volume makes a welcome contribution to the history of women, gender, and feminism…The essays, while brief, suggest interesting lines for further inquiry based on their creative use of printed sources…, as well as visual materials.”  ·  H-France Review“…many of the essays are extremely interesting and historians will find them valuable. The book’s brief conclusion emphasizes the achievements of the Belle Epoque: it altered ‘the sense of what it was to be a woman’ (307). Women did have a ‘Belle Epoque’, it seems, albeit a different one from men.”  ·  European History Quarterly

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsIntroductionDiana Holmes and Carrie TarrPART I: FEMINISM AND FEMINISTSChapter 1. New Republic, New Women? Feminism and Modernity at the Belle EpoqueDiana Holmes and Carrie TarrChapter 2. 1890–1914: A ‘Belle Epoque’ for Feminism?Máire CrossChapter 3. Marguerite Durand and La Fronde: Voicing Women of the Belle EpoqueMaggie AllisonChapter 4. The Uncompromising Doctor Madeleine Pelletier: Feminist and Political ActivistAnna NorrisChapter 5. Clans and Chronologies: The Salon of Natalie BarneyMelanie HawthornePART II: NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW WOMEN?Chapter 6. Vélo-Métro-Auto: Women’s Mobility in Belle Epoque ParisSiân ReynoldsChapter 7. Popularising New Women in Belle Epoque Advertising PostersRuth E. IskinChapter 8. An American in Paris: Loïe Fuller, Dance and TechnologyNaoko MoritaChapter 9. Becoming Women: Cinema, Gender and TechnologyElizabeth EzraPART III: WOMEN AND SPECTACLEChapter 10. Spectacles of Themselves: Women Writing for the Stage in Belle Epoque FranceKimberly van NoortChapter 11. Being a Dancer in 1900: Sign of Alienation or Quest for Autonomy?Hélène Laplace-ClaverieChapter 12. Visions of Reciprocity in the Work of Camille ClaudelAngela RyanPART IV: WOMEN, WRITING AND RECEPTIONChapter 13. Feminist Discourse in Women’s Novels of Professional DevelopmentJuliette M. RogersChapter 14. Daniel Lesueur and the Feminist RomanceDiana HolmesChapter 15. Virginal Perversion/Radical Subversion: Rachilde and Discourses of LegitimationJeri EnglishChapter 16. Decadence and the Woman Writer: Renée Vivien’s Une femme m’apparut TamaLea EngelkingChapter 17. Sensual Deviations and Verbal Abuse: Anna de Noailles in the Critic’s EyeCatherine PerryChapter 18. Proletarian Women, Proletarian Writing: The Case of Marguerite AudouxAngela KershawPART V: COLONISED AND OTHER WOMENChapter 19. Coloniser and Colonised in Hubertine Auclert’s Writings on AlgeriaEdith TaïebChapter 20. The Chivalrous Coloniser: Colonial Feminism and the roman à thèse in the Belle EpoqueJennifer YeeChapter 21. Marcelle Tinayre’s Notes d’une voyageuse en Turquie: Creating Solidarity among WomenMargot IrvineConclusionSelect Chronology 1870–1914BibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex