SOURCE: Introduction to The Juggler by Rachilde, translated by Melanie C. Hawthorne, Rutgers University Press, 1990, pp. xi-xxix.

In the following essay, Hawthorne focuses on Rachilde's thematic and technical innovations in her novel The Juggler.

The novelist Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery Vallette) became an instant success in French literary circles when, at the age of twenty-four, she published her fourth novel, Monsieur Vénus (1884). Her celebrity stemmed in large part from the public condemnation of the book: it was published by Brancart in Brussels, where it was immediately declared pornographic. Copies of the book were seized, and Rachilde was condemned to two years in prison and a fine of two thousand francs. She prudently chose to remain instead in Paris, where the sentence offered a passport to notoriety. Maurice Barrès dubbed her "Mademoiselle Baudelaire," while Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly averred, "A pornographer, granted … but such a distinguished one!" A more...