Marie-Madeleine is the pen name of a once-famous German Jewish lesbian writer whose sensuality and love for morphine was revealed in many of her bestselling books, originally released in the early twentieth century. Priestess of Morphine: The Lost Writings of Marie-Madeleine contains many of this fascinating woman's works, and also contains Stephen J. Gertz's foreword explaining why Marie-Madeleine has become a rediscovered heroine of lesbian and drug literature. Fascinating images from Marie-Madeleine's lost literature and career supplement this volume.

In 1727, twelve nuns left France to establish a community of Ursuline nuns in New Orleans, the capital of the French colony of Louisiana. Notable for founding a school that educated all free girls, regardless of social rank, the Ursulines also ran an orphanage, administered the colony's military hospital, and sustained an aggressive program of catechesis among the enslaved population of colonial Louisiana. In Voices from an Early American Convent, Emily Clark extends the boundaries of early American women's history through the firsthand accounts of these remarkable French missionaries, in particular Marie Madeleine Hachard. These fascinating documents reveal women of determination, courage, and conviction, who chose to forgo the traditional European roles of wife and mother, embrace lives of public service, and forge a community among the diverse inhabitants -- enslaved and free -- who occupied early New Orleans.

Standing at the critical juncture between traditional romance and early novelistic realism, Zayde is both the swan song of a literary tradition nearly two thousand years old and a harbinger of the modern psychological novel. Zayde unfolds during the long medieval struggle between Christians and Muslims for control of the Iberian Peninsula; Madame de Lafayette (1634-93) takes the reader on a Mediterranean tour typical of classical and seventeenth-century romances—from Catalonia to Cyprus and back again—with battles, prophecies, and shipwrecks dotting the crisscrossed paths of the book’s noble lovers. But where romance was long and episodic, Zayde possesses a magisterial architecture of suspense. Chaste and faithful heroines and heroes are replaced here by characters who are consumed by jealousy and unable to love happily. And, unlike in traditional romance, the reader is no longer simply expected to admire deeds of bravery and virtue, but instead is caught up in intense first-person testimony on the psychology of desire. Unavailable in English for more than two centuries, Zayde reemerges here in Nicholas Paige’s accessible and vibrant translation as a worthy representative of a once popular genre and will be welcomed by readers of French literature and students of the European novelistic tradition.

Ms. MacLean's debut novel illuminates the difficulty of racial identity and the chaos it can create. The narrative deftly investigates racism beyond simple black and white figures (Angela proves not "dark" enough for her black relatives, though most of the white world view her as black). Dotted with ghosts, sex scenes and ramblings in New Orleans and abroad, the story can be thrilling... an endless string of docile servants round out this astutely delicate dramatization of race relations. The story provides a worthwhile glimpse at how startling the answers to questions of heredity can be Kirkus review . With a fluid and truly elegant style and the controversial subjects of Races as well as "reincarnation", the talented Marie-Madeleine MacLean has brilliantly created a sinfully entertaining novel with the full force of intelligence behind a frightening drama." Race .The colour of shame" is indeed a brilliant debut novel and certainly an instant classic... Literary and creative artists This highly thought provoking exceptional novel about "racism and reincarnation" and the terrible chaos it can create, brilliantly defines the unique style as well as the perfect punctuation of its stylish French author. Crisp, with intelligent dialogues and richly detailed with an undeniable sharp "designer's eye", with a string of colorful characters who elegantly "dress to kill", the seemingly aloof Ms. M-M MacLean has certainly achieved an absolutely seductive and brilliant debut novel; certainly as brilliant as its beautiful and extremely stylish author... A must read!!! Jacques Bruyas. Author.

A WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR The little-known true story of the woman who headed the largest spy network in Vichy France during World War II. In 1941, a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of Alliance, a vast Resistance organisation — the only woman to hold such a role. Brave, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence as Alliance — and as a result, the Gestapo pursued its members relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcade’s own lover and many of her key spies. Fourcade herself lived on the run and was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escape. Though so many of her agents died defending their country, Fourcade survived the occupation to become active in post-war French politics. Now, in a dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself.