“This is a work of high importance, both methodologically and substantively. Not only does it perform a rescue operation on little-known novels by English and French women of the late eighteenth century, it contextualizes them so richly that it sheds new light on such familiar books as Corinne and The Princess of Clèves. It contributes to the history of sensibility as well as that of women’s writing, and it makes its contributions in highly readable fashion, in lucid, energetic prose.”—Patricia Meyer Spacks, University of Virginia