EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION. “THIS FIERY AND CONTENTIOUS WORK IS ESSENTIAL READING FOR STUDENTS OF WOMEN's WRITING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE” (ALISON FINCH). 8vo. (4), 352 pp, plus added steel-engraved title-page printed in red and black, and 3 engraved plates. Bound in contemporary gilt-ruled dark green calf, with gilt dentelles; but boards rather rubbed, and spine entirely devoid of calf, preserving only underlying binder’s paper waste. Binding holding firmly nonetheless. Remains on pastedown of a prize bookplate presented to Sara [????] at a private school for girls, the ‘Institution de Mme Duchesne-Varenne’, dated August 1837, and signed by Headmistress Duchesne-Varenne herself. Occasional foxing, otherwise good. Extremely rare first edition of this remarkable novel chronicling the career of a female author in early 19th century France. “Emilie should perhaps be read principally as a work of propaganda which aims to arouse indignation. It comes close to satire at times, and in its clear-sighted statement of problems… [it] probably gave courage to those girls who were allowed to read it… The mere fact that this sombrely single-minded book… [was] composed at all speaks for women’s longing to have men’s confidence and freedom to write, and to be given an equal chance to let their own names survive as artists.” (Finch, p. 106). It is interesting to note that the same theme interested Balzac, whose own La femme auteur remained unfinished but was probably composed around 1847. The novel opens boldly with the words “Femme auteur! Ces deux mots ne cessaient de retenir à l’oreille d’Emilie” (‘Woman author! These two words kept ringing in Emilie’s ears). The protagonist’s grandfather warns her that it is a dangerous career for a woman, and Emilie herself despairs at the obstacles which she knows will block her path, including the domestic duties which inevitably burden her sex: “Men do what they want, where women… Oh! What torture it is to be a woman!” she weeps on pp 25-28. After her first appearance in print she receives an unhelpful letter from her brother instructing her to desist, and telling her that her writing is worthless and uninspired. As Finch notes, the text seems rather more like thinly-veiled social criticism than the typically pedagogical children’s literature of the period. For Daniela de Cecco (Girls in French and Francophone Literature and Film, pp. 26-27), “Emilie… tells the story of a young woman who struggles with her devotion to her writing and her devotion to her family. Already a published author under her maiden name, she vows to leave behind her writing upon her marriage. Soon, though, she finds that this is more easily said than done and continues her writing without the knowledge of her husband. When she confesses to him that a book of poetry she wrote has obtained a prize from the Academie francaise, he is horrified rather than proud, and sees her renewed literary activities as the death knell for a happy domestic life. For, he warns her, ‘si un artiste peut render sa femme heureuse, il est presque impossible q’une femme écrivain, qu’une femme artiste rende heureux son époux” (p 185). Taking her husband’s advice to heart, when her niece expresses an interest in writing, Emilie implores her to desist, telling her instead to fulfull ‘le role que Dieu et la société assignent à la femme… sois femme avant tout” (pp. 238-239). Émilie ou la Jeune Fille Auteur enjoyed a handful editions throughout the 19th century; later editions are much more common, but the present first edition survives exceptionally poorly. OCLC in fact shows just two copies worldwide, at the BnF and UCLA. * cf the lengthy entry on Emilie in Finch’s Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France (2000), pp. 102-106.