Bernardin De Saint-Pierre ─ A Life of Culture

Bernadin de Saint-Pierre was late in the ranks of the French Enlightenment philosophes, but his chronology gave him the enviable privilege of actually witnessing what that august body of theoreticians brought to the world, namely hobbled monarchy, fierce revolution, and empire under a man who may have been enlightened but was also slightly mad. Cook (eighteenth century French studies, U. of Exeter) is the first to produce a full-length biography in English for this often overlooked but significant contributor to late Enlightenment ideas, focusing mainly on Bernardin's novel Paul et Virginie. Cook reminds us of the radical cultural, political and economic changes Bernardin could see all around him in his more than six dozen years, and provides fresh ideas on his significance and his ability to sort out the chaos around him. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)