Writing with a vengeance

This book examines the life and works of a nineteenth-century French courtesan, Céleste Vénard, later the Countess de Chabrillan. A nortorious Paris courtesan, Chabrillan married into the nobility, taught herself to write (penning two series of memoirs) and, upon being widowed, wrote novels to support herself -- ten, between 1857 and 1885. These novels and memoirs constitute exceptional literary and historical documents, particularly as very few sex workers before the twentieth century have left written records of their lives.