Download or read book The Chevalier d Eon and his Worlds written by Simon Burrows and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D'Eon's significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death. Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to 'the strange case of the chevalier d'Eon'. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms 'Eonist' and 'Eonism' were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but 'Eonism' was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d'Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual - a person who considers their sex to have been 'misassigned'. The essays in this collection contribute to d'Eon's rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d'Eon's life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.
Download or read book A King s Ransom written by Simon Burrows and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Charles Théveneau de Morande was a character in a novel, he would be considered the ultimate anti-hero. Morande's historical significance far transcends his success as a blackmailer and scandalous pamphleteer. Having extorted the French monarchy he turned coat and during the War of American Independence and throughout the 1780s was France's leading political spy in London. In addition, he was a highly successful police agent among his fellow exiles and one of the most influential journalists of his time. His enemies or victims - who invariably suffered intense damage to their reputations - included many of the most colourful figures of his day. Nevertheless, Morande survived the wrath of both Louis XV and the revolution, outlived his enemies, and died peacefully in his bed. Morande's life story is a tale of intrigue, blackmail, espionage, duels, kidnap, murder, politics, conspiracy and crime. At the same time, it offers a chance to examine some of the most important issues of French history and revolution.
Download or read book Beaumarchais written by Brian N. Morton and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beaumarchais and the Theatre written by William D. Howarth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-03-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William D Howarth sets Le Mariage de Figaro and Beaumarchais's other dramatic works in the broad historical context of pre-revolutionary France, providing a unique and authoritative study of the dramatist and his plays. He presents detailed analyses of the plays themselves, discussing their critical receptions, their influence on drama of the period and their legacy. Included is a discussion of the operatic adaptations: Mozart's Mariage de Figaro and Rossini's Le Barbier de Seville. The author also provides analyses of sketches and fragments only recently re-discovered. Beaumarchais and the Theatre is a comprehensive and much needed study of one of the most significant playwrights of the turbulent eighteenth century. It is invaluable reading for students of theatre history.
Download or read book Unlikely Allies written by Joel Richard Paul and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Without Precedent and Indivisible, the gripping true story of how three men used espionage, betrayal, and sexual deception to help win the American Revolution. Unlikely Allies is the story of three remarkable historical figures. Silas Deane was a Connecticut merchant and delegate to the Continental Congress as the American colonies struggled to break with England. Caron de Beaumarchais was a successful playwright who wrote The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. And the flamboyant and mysterious Chevalier d'Éon—officer, diplomat, and sometime spy—was the talk of London and Paris. Is the Chevalier a man or a woman? When Deane is sent to France to convince the French government to support the revolutionary cause, he enlists the help of Beaumarchais. Together, they successfully smuggle weapons, ammunition, and supplies to New England just in time for the crucial Battle of Saratoga, which turned the tide of the American Revolution. And the catalyst for Louis XVI's support of the Americans against England was the Chevalier d'Éon, whose decision to declare herself a woman helped to lead to the Franco-American alliance. These three people spin a fascinating web of political intrigue and international politics that stretches across oceans as they ricochet from Versailles to Georgian London to the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. Each man has his own reasons for wanting to see America triumph over the British, and each contends daily with the certainty that no one is what they seem. The line between friends and enemies is blurred, spies lurk in every corner, and the only way to survive is to trust no one. An edge-of-your-seat story full of fascinating characters and lavish with period detail and sense of place, Unlikely Allies is Revolutionary history in all of its juicy, lurid glory.
Download or read book Eros and Power in Les Liaisons Dangereuses written by Suellen Diaconoff and published by Librairie Droz. This book was released on 2014-06 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Great Improvisation written by Stacy Schiff and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-01-10 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career "In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerges a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.
Download or read book Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century written by Theodore Besterman and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence written by Elizabeth Sarah Kite and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence" in 2 volumes is one of the best-known works by an American historian Elizabeth Sarah Kite. Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799) was a French polymath who rose in French society and became influential in the court of Louis XV as an inventor and music teacher. He made a number of important business and social contacts, and played various roles as a diplomat and spy. An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during the American War of Independence. Before France officially entered the war in 1778, Beaumarchais played a major role in delivering French munitions, money and supplies to the American army. Volume 1: Early life First Financial Successes Business Negotiations in Spain Beaumarchais's Return from Madrid The Famous Memoirs of Beaumarchais Beaumarchais Goes to London in Quality of Secret Agent of Louis XV Beaumarchais's Second Mission Under Louis XVI Playing Figaro upon the Stage of Life Visits the Empress of Austria The Character of Figaro The First Performance of Le Barbier de Séville Founder of the First Society of Dramatic Authors... Volume 2: Beaumarchais's Earliest Activities in the Cause of American Independence First Steps of the Government of France Beaumarchais's Memoirs to the King Beaumarchais's English Connections Memoirs Explaining to the King the Plan of His Commercial House Suspicions of England Aroused Through Indiscretions of Friends of America The Declaration of Independence and Its Effect in Europe Beaumarchais's Activity in Getting Supplies to America Letters to Congress The Mariage de Figaro House of Beaumarchais Searched Declared an Emigré Confiscation of his Goods Imprisonment of his Family The Ninth Thermidor Comes to Save Them Beaumarchais After his Return from Exile Correspondence with Bonaparte Pleads for Lafayette Imprisoned Death of Beaumarchais...
Download or read book MLN written by and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides image and full-text online access to back issues. Consult the online table of contents for specific holdings.
Download or read book European Theories of the Drama written by Barrett Harper Clark and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beaumarchais written by Maurice Lever and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few men of 18th-century letters led a more varied or controversial life than Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Incorporating letters and firsthand accounts, this is an irresistibly lively and engaging account of an extraordinary life.
Download or read book Blackmail Scandal and Revolution written by Simon Burrows and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Burrows examines the activities, adventures, publications, and influence of the most venomous critics of the Bourbon monarchy - French exile libellistes who flocked to London to publish scandalous or sexually salacious pamphlets hoping to extort lavish suppression fees. Smut-mongering pamphleteers are prominent figures in the recent historiography of the French revolution. Many historians now contend that nihilistic, 'Grub Street' authors sapped the foundations of the monarchy with their 'desacralising' and frequently pornographic attacks on French monarchs and their consorts, above all Marie-Antoinette. Such arguments, it has been suggested, amount to a veritable 'pornographic interpretation' of the French revolution. Simon Burrows offers a comprehensive refutation of this interpretation and recontextualises 'Grub Street' pamphleteers within the political life of the ancien régime. In the course of his dissection of the libellistes' life histories, social networks, business activities, literary output, political affiliations, and blackmail negotiations, he demonstrates that political pornographic attacks on living monarchs or their consorts were almost unobtainable prior to 1789. He concludes that the libellistes' primary importance lies in their contribution to factional politics and in the public disquiet aroused by desperate and heavy-handed attempts to kidnap or silence them. With its revisionist interpretation of the pre-revolutionary public sphere, Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution will be essential reading for students of eighteenth-century political culture and the French revolution. However, its colourful and lively cast of perfidious spies, cynical ministers, royal mistresses, a tragic queen, conniving diplomats, and criminal rogues will also appeal to a wider audience.
Download or read book Modern Language Notes written by and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 1072 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Critical Commentary on Beaumarchais s Le Mariage de Figaro written by Anthony R. Pugh and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American State Papers written by and published by . This book was released on 1834 with total page 998 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
