"Thanks to the continued efforts of present-day seventeenth-century scholars, a study devoted to the works of Marie-Catherine Desjardins (Madame de Villedieu) should be of considerable interest to students and teachers of seventeenth-century literature, as well as a contribution to the fields of comparative literature and women's studies.". "The purpose of this edition is to bring together for the first time a significant number of critical analyses on Marie-Catherine Desjardins by prominent scholars in a full-length study devoted to the full range of genres. The essays in this volume analyze a reasonable range of the author's works - novels, plays, letters, short stories - and demonstrate an impressive knowledge of the historical contexts - biographical, literary, social, and political - influencing Villedieu. The authors engage in textual analysis informed by relevant scholarship on Desjardins and on other seventeenth-century writers."--BOOK JACKET.