Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Contents: Acknowledgments Translator's Introduction 1. My Stepfather 2. The Hunter and the Hunted 3. The Lyon Insurrection 4. M. Vincent 5. Therese 6. Denise 7. The Fall 8. Effects of a Hospital Stay 9. The Bal Mabille 10. A "Queen's" Destiny 11. The Hippodrome 12. Lise's Yellow Dress 13. A Chariot Race 14. Travel Impressions 15. Acts of Desperation 16. Lise's Return 17. Dinner at the Cafe Anglais 18. Lionel 19. In the Country 20. Gust of Wind at Le Havre and Masked Ball at the Opera 21. Hooray for Reform! 22. Roulette 23. La Pepine 24. The June Insurrection 25. Chateau Life 26. Richard 27. Cholera Gives Me a Godchild 28. Dramatic Follies and Folies-Dramatiques 29. Proud Women, Passionate Men 30. London 31. Unfortunate Encounter 32. The Girl from the Provinces 33. Death Throes of a Fortune 34. To the Antipodes 35. My Law Lesson 36. The Varietes Theater 37. A Dead Woman and a Ghost 38. A Miner's Diary 39. Let My Destiny Be Done! Notes Works by Celeste de Chabrillan

Monique Nagem is a professor of modern languages at McNeese State University. She is the translator of Chantal Chawaf's Mother Love, Mother Earth and Redemption, as well as of Dominique Rolin's The Garden of Delights.

"From the first page, (Mogador) declares her intention to tell the real story of a courtesan's experiences... Celeste's telegraphic, mostly unadorned, literary style supports her claim to authenticity - -she was almost entirely uneducated, and at 15 could barely read. But it is the palpable pleasure she takes in seeing people and events clearly, even recognizing her own flaws and those of the people she loves and wishes to think well of, that gives her book the complexity of truth - -the kind of complex truth we often look for in modern fiction." December 2, 2001, "Holiday Books" issue of the New York Times Book