Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orleans. A Woman’s Life at the Court of the Sun King. Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orleans, 1652-1722
Elborg Forster (éd.)
Trans. and introduction by Elborg Forster. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. lx + 287 p. Illustrations and index. $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8018-5635-8.
Compte rendu de Charlotte C. Wells
Elborg Forster here offers an English version of Margarethe Westphal’s selection from the von der Pfalz letters, originally published in German in 1958. Forster chose to translate the Westphal edition because it highlights the second Madame’s reflections on "life and letters, human destiny, religion, the role of princes in society, health of body and mind, and the education of children" (p. ix). Von der Pfalz emerges from these documents as a strong and articulate woman who used her writing to transcend a thoroughly unhappy set of circumstances...