While the decline of the male hero in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature is usually studied in isolation, Druxes uses a major manifestation of this phenomenon&—the failing power of the Faust myth&—as an interpretive lens through which to illuminate the corresponding rise in the viability of female Faustian heroes or would-be heroes. Her study of the female Faust figure in the realist novels of Stendhal, Gauthier, Keller, James, and the contemporary writer Morgner is further unusual in that she carries out her analyses both against the background of the sociohistorical factors conditioning these female figures and with reference to the mutual interaction of plot and novel form. Since nineteenth-century writers make female subjectivity the arena in which the conflicts of male subjecthood are debated, their attempts to create female versions of the heroic quest for self-knowledge speak not only to the crisis of the male model but also to the crisis of the realistic novel. Using psychoanalytic theory and French feminist and deconstructionist theory, Helga Druxes shows how the female Faustian quest for worldly knowledge and subjecthood develops a new concept of identity that takes its social constructedness into account, and she demonstrates some of the transgressive narrative strategies that male and female writers have employed, embodying their dissent not only in the creation of a female Faust but in their visions of an authentic female desire for selfhood and socially regenerative female bonding.

The papers collected in this volume are selected from the proceedings of the Love and Sexuality conference held at the University of Leeds in 2002. They bring together a cross-section of new directions in the study of love and sexuality currently being explored in French Studies. The central focus of the collection is the representation of love, desire, erotica and sexuality in the couple, in particular in relation to depictions of women. The contributions share a common concern with problematising issues of love and sexuality across various disciplines, focusing on literary texts, cinema, gender studies, theatre studies, history, visual iconography and cultural studies, and ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day.

When Chief Inspector Pel accepts a drinks invitation at the house of a big shot, Deputy Claude Barclay, he doesn’t realise how compromised he will become by his acceptance. Shortly afterwards, Barclay is kidnapped; the partially decomposed body of a retired soldier is discovered in a wood, and a series of art forgeries need investigating. Pel must tie all three together and solve a scandal which has become the talk of France. Moody, sharp-tongued and worrying constantly about his health, Inspector Pel ensures that no case goes unsolved, in these mordantly witty French mysteries. Praise for the Inspector Pel Mystery series: ‘Totally convincing.’ Financial Times ‘Mr Hebden has created a nice band of flics.’ Oxford Times ‘Pel and his procedurals are some of the best things since Maigret.’ Observer ‘Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel, as well rounded a character as Maigret or Van der Valk.’ Punch ‘Impeccable French ambience, unexaggerated flics, and a well-constructed solution. Hebden proves again that few understand Gallic cops better than English writers!’ The Times ‘Some characters grow as their saga lengthens and Pel... is one of them. You might say he is ripening along with the grapes.’ Police Review ‘...written with downbeat humour and some delightful dialogue.’ Financial Times ‘...all is most cunningly contrived and dovetailed into a coherent plot.’ Irish Times ‘A thoroughly entertaining read.’ Evening Standard ‘The best Gallic sleuth since Maigret.’ London Mystery Selection

"Stendhal's most independent heroines are usually disliked or marginalized by critics. However, when gender-neutral criteria are applied, Mina de Vanghel, Vanina Vanini, Mathilde de La Mole, and Lamiel can all be shown to enact extraordinary experiments in freedom. These experiments are all the more remarkable in view of the gender of their agents, the historical situation of the author (1783-1842), and the conventions of the literary movement that his fiction helped to found: realism. Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 study of Stendhal's heroines gives preference to the reserved females over his Amazons. But existentialism, as a philosophy of freedom, also enables a reading of the self-determining heroines that acknowledges the superiority of their choices: their resistance and counter-plots, their paradoxical authenticity, their rejection of seriousness, and their assumption of responsibility for the routes they plot."

Books 4-6 in the Psychic Seasons Series Wherever She Goes Kat Canton sees too much—even while she sees nothing at all. Used to being both blind and psychic, she does the best she can with the cards she has been dealt. Even if those cards are of the Tarot variety. With two strikes against her, Kat has given up on love completely. Who would want to date a blind psychic? It isn’t until her friend Gustavia shows up at Kat’s door with a new client for a reading that everything changes. A pair of pesky ghosts force Kat into making new friends, helping to solve an old family mystery, and chasing a madman bent on revenge. Then comes the fateful day when a pair of warm brown eyes pierces the fog clouding her vision, and Kat is literally blindsided by the chance at love. Now, Kat is faced with the choice of learning to let light and love shine though, or forever stay safe in her nest of darkness. Earthbound Bones Sometimes even an angel can’t go home again. Galmadriel, a former guardian angel, is stuck in an awkward situation. A mistake dragged her out of heaven and turned her into something not quite human, yet not fully an angel. The Powers That Be decide to use her unique skills for solving supernatural problems. Earthwalkers who belong in the darkness and ghosts that need to find their way home are Adriel’s bread and butter—or they would be if the job paid anything. Instead, they drop her into the middle of oncoming traffic and leave her to fend for herself. If helping the ghost of young Ben Allen solve the mystery surrounding his untimely death wasn't enough, Adriel must also solve the murder of her next-door neighbor. Something she can only do with help from the Psychic Seasons gang. Earthbound Wings Some days even an angel can't catch a break. Waking up in strange places has become stock in trade for earthbound angel, Adriel.This time she has landed right in the middle of a crime scene where some guy who looks like a superhero wannabe gives her a hard time about her performance. The Powers That Be keep sending her on jobs without explanation and now she has to rescue her own guardian angel from the clutches of evil.