Ridiculed for her Saturday salon, her long romance novels, and her protofeminist ideas, Madeleine de Scudery (1607-1701) has not been treated kindly by the literary establishment. Yet her multivolume novels were popular best-sellers in her time, translated almost immediately into English, German, Italian, Spanish and even Arabic. "The Story of Sapho" makes available for the first time in modern English a self-contained section from Scudery's novel "Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus", best known today as the favoured reading material of the would-be "salonnieres" that Moliere satirized in "Les precieuses ridicules". The "Story" tells of Sapho, a woman writer modeled on the Greek Sappho, who deems marriage slavery. Interspersed in the love story of Sapho and Phaon are a series of conversations, like those that took place in Scudery's own salon, in which Sapho and her circle discuss the nature of love, the education of women, writing and right conduct. This edition also includes a translation of an oration, or "harangue" of Scudery's in which Sapho extols the talents and abilities of women in order to persuade them to write.

Translated by: Karen Newman