The Letter in Flora Tristan's Politics, 1835-1844

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Reading Flora Tristan

   • Máire Fedelma Cross

   Pages 1-32

3. The Making of a Utopian Correspondent

   • Máire Fedelma Cross

   Pages 33-72

4. Speaking from the Heart: The Dichotomy of the Letters in the 1843 and 1844 Correspondence

   • Máire Fedelma Cross

   Pages 73-115

5. Conflicts of Authority in the Epistolary Creation of Union ouvrière

   • Máire Fedelma Cross

   Pages 116-163

6. Utopia in Flora Tristan’s Letters

   • Máire Fedelma Cross

   Pages 164-184

7. Back Matter

   Pages 185-201

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This innovative study analyzes Flora Tristan's correspondence with militant republicans, socialists and democrats active in the July Monarchy. It examines the role of the letter in fostering links at a time of a significant growth of literacy and search for citizenship by the disenfranchised. Combining a gendered analysis of socialist movements with a textual analysis of letters it illustrates the vitality of political tensions in Tristan's communications and the sophistication of political networks on the eve of the 1848 revolution.

• growth
• monarchy
• revolution

'The author aims to show how textual analysis of the correspondence illustrates the gendered nature of socialist movements, the vitality of political tensions in Tristan's communications and the sophistication of political networks on the eve of 1848'. - International Review of Social History

Professor Máire Cross was appointed to a Chair in French in the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle University in September 2005. Formerly she was Head of the Department of French and Chair of the School of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. She is President of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France. Recent publications include The Letter in Flora Tristan's Politics, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004, and an edited book (with Caroline Bland) entitled Gender and Politics in the Age of Letter-Writing, 1750-2000, published by Ashgate in 2004.

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