In her letters Mme de Staël provides a panoramic historical outlook of the European literary, cultural and political scene between 1789 and 1817, i.e. the Revolution, the Napoleonic era and the Restoration. This edition, as its French original, includes rare contemporary illustrations never published before in this connection. For this book there is no specific level of readership.

Inhaltsangabe1. Childhood and Adolescence. 2. Madame de Staël, Ambassadress of Sweden (1786). 3. The Beginnings of the Revolution (1789-1791). 4. Count de Narbonne (1792-1793). 5. Madame de Staël and her Friends in Switzerland (1793). 6. Count Ribbing, `The Beautiful Regicide' (1793-1795). 7. Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant and the Directory (1795-1799). 8. The Opposition to Bonaparte; the Exile Begins (1800-1803). 9. The Journey to Germany, Weimar and Berlin (1803-1804). 10. The Death of Necker (1804). 11. Corinne and Italy (1805). 12. `The Terrible Year 1806' and the Great Days of Coppet. 13. The Stay in Vienna and Maurice O'Donnell (1808-1809). 14. The Crisis of `On Germany' (1810-1812). 15. The Great Journey, Russia, Sweden, England (1812-1814). 16. Return to France, the Hundred Days, the Restoration (1814-1815). 17. Albertine's Wedding, the Year with Byron, Death (1815-1817).