Research Monographs in French Studies

In the introduction to this little book, Denys Potts gives an excellent introduction to Saint-Evremond s career and writings... Most of the space in the letters is given over to financial details of a Balzacian kind, but in between these come flashes of the wit and man-about-town, nostalgic moments, thoughts about literature, reflections on age.--Peter France"Times Literary Supplement" (11/01/2002)" This book is a delight on a number of levels... The exemplary introduction and notes by Denys Potts offer far more than one might expect: not only do we learn about the contents of the letters themselves, but we are also given an erudite yet highly readable account of Saint-Evremond s life and his importance as both thinker and stylist... Invaluable documentary material for Saint-Evremond scholars and a fine introduction to a master of the epistolary art.--Nicholas Hammond "Modern Language Review, 98.4, 2003, 986-7 "" These letters seek help in pressing for private annuity payments long overdue. Those to his fellow-Norman Mme de Gouville are embroidered with self-ironic galanteries and with jokes about the tight-fistedness of their province. Letters to the abbe, an amateur scientist and inventor, playfully evoke debt-recovery in terms of Cartesian mechanics.--Robin Howells "Huguenot Society Proceedings, 28.1, 2003, 121 "" A particularly full and illuminating account of the life and thought of [Potts s] elusive subject... The letters afford a kind of coda to the biography that leads into them.--Richard Parish "French Studies, LVIII.1, 2004, 105-6 "" This volume also provides a very useful introduction, which gives an overview of Saint-Evremond s life and ideas and the context in which the letters were written.--unsigned notice "Forum for Modern Language Studies, XL.2, April 2004, 238 ""