Olympe de Gouges has been called illiterate, immoral, and insane while being mentioned solely for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and [the female] Citizen. This book uncovers her radical views of the self, the family, and the state and accounts for her vision of increasing female agency and decreasing the entitlements of aristocratic males.

Carol L. Sherman is Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.