First of all, the title. Jean-Phillippe Rameau (1683-1764) was one of the dominant composers of 18th-century France, and one of the most...

Denis Diderot was a critical thinker and writer immediately before the French Revolution, though not as well-known as Voltaire and...

I expected a lot of sexual content from “Justine” - after all it's by the Marquis de Sade. Surprise surprise, its sexual content has...

This is a story by an Englishman, written originally in French, about a caliph in and around what is currently parts of Arabia, Persia,...

Okay, I read “The 120 Days Of Sodom” because it's on the list, but I can't imagine why it's there. Now you know what you're in for if you...

The “Confessions”, frequently referred to as the first modern autobiography, came out in 1782, four years after author Jean-Jacques...

Awhile ago, I told you that I found Samuel Richardson's “Clarissa” infuriatingly difficult to read because the characters were either too...

Don't be fooled; despite the title, “Reveries Of The Solitary Walker” does not have very much walking in it. Then again, this is...

We're told that of all his works, and there were a lot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau considered “Emile, Or On Education” to be the “best and...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been called a great many thing, both during his life and after his death – a philosopher, a political theorist,...

In many cases (though certainly not all), the most influential works of art took the shortest amount of time to produce. Take “Candide”....

Apart from Lady Murasaki's "The Tale Of Genji" (and a few anonymous works that may have been written by women), "The Princess Of Cleves"...

Not too many authors have seen their very names add words to the English language. There's Kafka and Lovecraft and a few others, but even...