position. Many of her contemporaries exalted her as "the founder of the romantic movement" who gave "ideas" to the world. Today she is almost forgotten, and her novels and plays, among them "Corinne" and "Sophie and Jane Grey" lie undisturbed and dusty on the library shelves.
Perhaps her most remarkable contribution to literature was her book "L' Allemagne," which was announced in 1810. It gave a most intelligent exposition of the science, literature, arts, philosophy, and other characteristics of the Germans, gathered from the author's own observations. The work, written with a spirited independence, quite at variance with the deadening political influence of Napoleon, irritated the emperor to such a degree that he ordered the minister of police to seize and destroy the whole edition of 10,000 copies. Besides this he exiled the author from France. When, after the overthrow of Napoleon, she returned to Paris, she had her book printed again, and had the satisfaction of seeing it eagerly read by millions of Frenchmen.
Of all French authoresses of the 19th Century Armantine Lucile Aurore Dudevant, or "George Sand," holds the supreme rank. In the long line of her thoughtful, concentrated and meditative novels "Valentine," "Indiana," "Lelia," "Mauprat," and "Le Meunier d' Angibault" are real gems of fiction, whose influence can be traced in many later works by writers of France and other nations.
Of her contemporaries Louise Révoil Colet, Eugenie de Guérin, Pauline de la Ferronay Craven, and, above all, Delphine de Girardin must be mentioned, whose 'Letters Parisiennes" as well as her poems, novels, dramas and comedies belong to the most excellent productions of the 19th Century. By her dramatic pieces "L'Ecole des Journalistes," "Judith," "Cleopatra," "C'est la faute du mari," "Lady Tartufe," and others she reaped a wide popularity. In the literary society of her time she exercised no small personal influence. Balzac, Alfred de Musset, Gautier, and Victor Hugo were among the frequenters of her salon.
Among the British woman writers of the latter part of the 18th Century Jane Austen was the most distinguished. Her novels "Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," "Emma," "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" have been likened to the carefully-executed paintings of the Dutch masters for their charming pictures of quiet, natural life.
Ann Ward Radcliffe wrote three novels unsurpassed of their kind in English literature: "The Romance of the Forest," "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and The "Italian." They are distinguished for originality, ingenuity of plot, fertility of incident, and skill in devising apparently supernatural occur-
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