REVIEWS 97 Isabelle de Charrière. Lettres deMistriss Henleypubliées par son amie. Ed. Joan Hinde Stewart and Philip Stewart. MLA Texts and Translations. New York: MLA, 1993. xxxi + 45pp. US$3.95. ISBN 0-87352-775-5. Isabelle de Charrière. Letters ofMistress Henley Published by Her Friend. Trans. Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché. MLA Texts and Translations. New York: MLA, 1993. xxix + 42pp. US$3.95. ISBN 0-87352-776-3. The above title is one of two critical editions in the new MLA Texts and Translations twin series publications (the other is the Lettres d'une Péruvienne, reviewed in this issue by David Smith on p. 71). Unlike the conventional treatment of the marriage plot where the heroine is carried off by her Prince Charming into a golden sunset, the Lettres de Mistriss Henley deals with the difficult adjustments encountered after marriage. The heroine's unhappiness— owing to her tyrannical husband, to problems arising from a difficult relationship with the child by his first wife, to her inability to communicate her estrangement in a household foreign to her, and to the resulting self-flagellation—is the thematic core of the novel. Mistriss Henley's sensitivity and martyrdom, provoked by guilt, are contrasted with her husband's self-centredness, closed heart, and autocratic nature. The poignant plot where there are no winners or losers questions the rigidity of social structures, the lack of opportunity for intelligent women, and the irrationality still pervading education even as the Age of Reason draws to a close. The originality of these six letters, where movement and progress depend on an oscillation between the public and private spheres, reflects the modern drama of matrimony. In the critical apparatus are lists of the principal works of Charrière with their dates of publication, and of the many editions of the Lettres de Mistriss Henley that have appeared over the years, including the English translations of the novel. A guide to secondary sources on the novel is also provided. Other valuable information is contained in footnotes of a historical, narratological, interpretative, intertextual, and linguistic nature. The twelve-page introduction (the same for both languages) highlights the genesis of Charrière's novel, which the authors describe as a "literary provocation" in response to the publication of a misogynist novel by Samuel de Constant, Le Mari sentimental. Their succinct comparison of the similar plot of Constant's longer novel with Charrière's treatment of an unhappy marriage demonstrates the different approaches in the novels to the loveless relationship of a couple who enter freely into a union that turns out to be unsuccessful for the woman. The critics' feminist approach to the heroine's domestic life brings out the intertextual elements of Charrière's novel. They might have gone a step further in the analysis of the narration, however, linking late eighteenth-century fiction to the modern novel through the tradition of "le roman sur rien," by showing how Charrière subverts the nihilistic dénouement and its internal message concerning the most important aspect of a female character's life, namely her identity. It is not necessary to give a detailed analysis of the companion English version of Lettres de Mistriss Henley, so ably translated by Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché. The translators have chosen to parallel the style and structure of the source text. Given the clarity and classical simplicity of the original text, this is a wise choice. The translation captures the voice of Mistriss Henley and the more formal style of eighteenth-century writing. Occasionally , however, the "structure for structure" approach results in an English which may strike the modern reader as rather stilted and perhaps clumsy. For example, translating "mais toute la maison ... qu'elle faisait" (p. 13) "structure for structure" results in an unnatural construction in English. Similarly, "if you had objected your own reasons and tastes" (p. 42), although it renders the message of its French equivalent (p. 98 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 7:1 44), does so in a stilted manner. Although the translators have created a happy balance between eighteenth and twentieth-century usage, it is inevitable that, at times, the English equivalent will fail...