Prostitution In Paris In The Later Nineteenth Century

Ubiquitous in the streets and brothels of nineteenth-century Paris, the prostitute was even more so in the novels and paintings of the time. Charles Bernheimer discusses how these representations of the sexually available woman express male ambivalence about desire, money, class, and the body. Interweaving close textual analysis with historical anecdote and theoretical speculation, Bernheimer demonstrates how the formal properties of art can serve strategically to control anxious fantasies about female sexual power. Drawing on methods derived from cultural studies, psychoanalysis, social history, feminist theory, and narrative analysis, this interdisciplinary classic (available now for the first time in paperback) was awarded Honorable Mention in 1990 for the James Russell Lowell prize awarded by the Modern Language Association for the best book of criticism.

Prostitution was a serious problem for nineteenth-century Europe: a threat to public health and public order and, at the same time, a prop to morality, allowing society to protect the purity of most women by sacrificing that of only a few. Jill Harsin examines the methods by which the police of Paris resolved the contradictions of this situation--an extralgal adminsitrative system involving the registration, regular medical examination, and periodic administrative detention of all working-class prostitutes. As the author shows, this regulatory system not only deprived prostitutes of civil rights, but increasingly encroached on the rights of all working women who, by the standards and definitions of the police, exhibited suspicious moral character. Drawing on a variety of sources, Professor Harsin presents statistical material on such topics as prostitutes' criminality, providing new evidence for an area hitherto dominated by speculation. Her work challenges previous interpretations by showing a regulatory system well in place during the Restoration. Jill Harsin is Assistant Professor of History at Colgate University. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

When Cäleste Mogador's memoirs were first published in 1854 and again in 1858, they were immediately seized and condemned as immoral and unsuitable for public consumption. For a reader in our more forgiving times, this extraordinary document offers not only a portrait of the early life of an intelligent, courageous, and infinitely intriguing Frenchwoman but also an exceedingly rare inside look at the world of the courtesans and prostitutes of nineteenth-century France. ø Writing to conciliate judges and creditors, Mogador (born Cäleste Venard in 1824) explains how with tenacity, wit, and audacity, she managed to escape a difficult childhood and subsequent life of prostitution to become, successively, a darling of the dance halls, a circus rider, and an actress, all the while attracting wealthy young men who vied for her favor. Although her account gives readers a peek into the rakish demimonde made famous by Verdi's opera La Traviata, its greatest value lies in its candid picture of a spunky, self-educated woman who doggedly transformed herself into an esteemed and prolific novelist and playwright, who fell in love with a count and married him, and who made her name synonymous with the bohemian life of the 1840s and 1850s in Paris.

Legends, tales, and mysteries featuring saints captivated the French at the end of the nineteenth century. As Jean Lorrain pointed out in an 1891 article for the popular weekly Le Courrier Francais, the seemingly simple language of the saints' lives, their noble battles between good and evil and the atmosphere of religious mysticism appealed to many, especially those involved in the visual and performing arts. Ironically The Third Republic (1870-1940), a regime that claimed to reinforce and institute the secular ideas of the French Revolution, was witness to this great popular interest in the saints and religious imagery. The eight essays in this work explore the popularity of the saints from the 1850s to the 1920s. The essays evaluate the role they played in literature, art, music, science, history and politics, examine portrayals of the saints' lives in both low and high culture (from children's literature, shadow plays and the popular press to literature, opera and theological studies), and reveal the prevalence of the saints in fin-de-siecle France.

In this engrossing book, Hollis Clayson provides the first description and analysis of French artistic interest in women prostitutes, examining how the subject was treated in the art of the 1870s and 1880s by such avant-garde painters as Cézanne, Degas, Manet, and Renoir, as well as by the academic and low-brow painters who were their contemporaries. Clayson not only illuminates the imagery of prostitution-with its contradictory connotations of disgust and fascination-but also tackles the issues and problems relevant to women and men in a patriarchal society. She discusses the conspicuous sexual commerce during this era and the resulting public panic about the deterioration of social life and civilized mores. She describes the system that evolved out of regulating prostitutes and the subsequent rise of clandestine prostitutes who escaped police regulation and who were condemned both for blurring social boundaries and for spreading sexual licentiousness among their moral and social superiors. Clayson argues that the subject of covert prostitution was especially attractive to vanguard painters because it exemplified the commercialization and the ambiguity of modern life.

Histories of France have erased the feminist presence from nineteenth-century political life and the feminist impact from the changes that affected the lives of the French. Now, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century completes the history books by restoring this missing—and vital—chapter of French history. The book recounts the turbulent story of nineteenth-century French feminism, placing it in the context of the general political events that influenced its development. It also examines feminist thought and activities, using the very words of the women themselves—in books, newspapers, pamphlets, memoirs, diaries, speeches, and letters. Featured is a wealth of previously unpublished personal letters written by Saint-Simonian women. These engrossing documents reveal the nuances of changing consciousness and show how it led to an autonomous women's movement. Also explored are the relationships between feminist ideology and women's actual status—legal, social, and economic—during the century. Both bourgeois and working-class women are surveyed. Beginning with a general survey of feminism in France, the book provides historical context and clarifies the later vicissitudes of the "condition feminine."

Selling Sex in the City offers a worldwide analysis of prostitution since 1600. It analyses more than 20 cities with an important sex industry and compares policies and social trends, coercion and agency, but also prostitutes' working and living conditions.