TRISTAN, Flora.

£4,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Méphis. Second edition, published the same year as the first, of the radical philosopher's only novel, vividly articulating her goal of social revolution through female emancipation. Méphis is uncommonly met with; we trace only one previous auction listing for any edition.The philosophy of Flora Tristan (1803-1844) linked the nascent socialist theories of class struggles with the contested position of women in contemporary society. Following the mixed reception of her previous political works, in Méphis she employs the conventions of the novel to visualise her conception of social reform. The work centres on the titular protagonist's relationships with two aristocratic women, and the tensions implicit therein - both in his proletariat origins, and in the broader patriarchal conventions weighing on them. Tristan draws several "vivid evocations of feminist role models" (Cross & Gray, p. 2), thereby winning the novel "a secure place in French Romantic literature" (Puech, quoted in Cross & Gray, p. 2).The work gained further notoriety due to the events surrounding its publication. In 1838, Tristan's estranged husband - a failed artist, enraged by her literary success - shot her in the street in broad daylight. Miraculously, she was not seriously injured, and the resulting trial boosted her sales considerably. Tristan's socialist-feminist philosophy anticipates several aspects of Marx and Engels: she most notably coined the term "Workers of the world, unite" a full five years befo

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