A nineteenth-century social reform proposal, available again

Active in the 1830s and 1840s, Flora Tristan is best known for her book "Workers' Union", an account of the conditions of women and workers in Peru, London, Paris and the provinces of France. Regarded as something of a pariah, she was one of the first women radicals to draw clear connections between the plight of disaffected workers and powerless women. Her version of socialism has been regarded as leading towards Marx. Sandra Dijkstra aims to paint a clear picture of Tristan as a class- and gender-conscious women writer in a transitional historical period, and to demonstrate her influence on Marxism.

In the Footsteps of Flora Tristan is the first ever study devoted to Jules Puech (1879–1957), and is a double biography that examines his life’s work on Flora Tristan (1803–1844), feminist and socialist. It begins by examining newly found press reports of Flora Tristan during her lifetime and subsequently, then positions Puech’s discovery of her, as a postgraduate student in Paris in the 1900s. It continues with an account of how he embarked on the first in-depth biography published in 1925. Puech was unmatched in his expertise as a writer on Flora Tristan having discovered her papers through his numerous political connections and having become a historian of Proudhon’s legacy on the international aspirations of the labour movement. Together with his wife Marie-Louise Puech, née Milhau (1876-1966), suffragist feminist, he was a militant in the early twentieth-century pacifist movement that advocated international arbitration. His research on Flora Tristan was enriched by his other projects but was thwarted by the wars of 1914–1918 and 1940–1945. The circumstances of the long gestation of Puech's biography are drawn from his letters and papers, hitherto unseen. The correspondence curated brings a new understanding to the multi-faceted nature of Puech’s activism and rate of progress in the publication of his findings on his subject, Flora Tristan.

Flora Tristan is best known as a nineteenth century French social critic and reformer. Her writings can be seen as a precursor to Marxism and Feminism. Flora Tristan: Life Sories by Susan Grogan, investigates the life of Flora Tristan through an exploration of the way she represented herself in her own writings. The author also examines the portrayal of Flora Tristan in paintings and literature. Rather than adopting a chronological approach, the author surveys the personae of Flora Tristan through thematic chapters on her roles as author, socialist, traveller and "Mother of the Workers". She places Flora Tristan in the context of contemporary debates and ideas, adding to our understanding of the times in which Flora Tristan lived. Flora Tristan: Life Stories argues that Flora Tristan's self-representations were attempts to claim a role of authority and significance not open to women in the nineteenth century. This authoritative study also engages with attempts to re-evaluate the writing of biography and to explore the meaning of an individual life in historical context.