Description: The New Biography looks at the life stories of eight famous women in nineteenth-century France who became public figures even though they lived in a society that did not encourage women to speak out publicly. All of the these women -- activists, writers, and philosophers -- became controversial figures who challenged conventional notions of femininity in their time. Their stories are therefore particularly well suited to the philosophical premises and narrative strategies associated with the experimentation currently under way in biographical writing. By showing how these women deliberately created their public lives -- how they "fashioned" themselves into celebrities -- Jo Burr Margadant and her colleagues demonstrate the rich rewards of the new methods in biography.

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