Editor’s Note

It may seem perverse in 2021 to be accentuating the urgent need for a fuller appraisal of women philosophers in early modern France, but it remains a sad truth that the significant philosophical writing undertaken by women in France during the time period covered by this Journal has still not received the attention that it deserves. It comes as a particular delight, therefore, to welcome this special issue, guest edited by Derval Conroy, which makes an important contribution to the growing scholarly interest in this field. All too often significant women thinkers in their own right have been recast as subservient to or as convenient soundingboards for male philosophers: one only has to read the correspondence of Elisabeth of Bohemia with Descartes or Jacqueline Pascal’s letters to her brother Blaise to see the strength with which the female correspondents hold their own philosophical positions in contradistinction to those of their more celebrated male counterparts. In this special issue, it is good, therefore, to have writers like Marie de Gournay and Louise Dupin, who have often been consigned to the shadows of Montaigne and Jean-Jacques Rousseau respectively, reconsidered on their own terms. Other important philosophical thinkers, such as Gabrielle Suchon, are discussed in detail in this issue, and the extraordinarily rich texts of less immediately familiar writers such as Suzanne de Nervèze and Louise Keralio-Robert are given due prominence also. The editor and all contributors are to be warmly thanked for bringing together a series of essays that be will of great value to readers from many different disciplines. early modern french studies, Vol. 43 No. 1, July 2021, 1