Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus′s Pun – A Bilingual Edition and Study

Kelly Peebles’s excellent translation and edition of Jeanne Flore’s Comptes amoureux / Tales and Trials of Love (Lyon, 1542) puts Flore back on the map of important French female authors, both for English-speaking readers and for scholars interested more broadly in early modern French print culture. The transcription of the French text, complete with bibliographic details from the first edition, pairs beautifully with Peebles’s dynamic and engaging translation. Peebles’s introduction elegantly shows how Flore’s text stands as a significant textual and material representative of one of the most artistically rich and culturally tumultuous times in early modern France. Her edition and translation will no doubt become a principal reference for future scholarly work not only on Jeanne Flore, but also on female authorship, gender, and print culture in early modern France and Europe.

"Kelly Peebles’s excellent translation and edition of Jeanne Flore’s Comptes amoureux / Tales and Trials of Love (Lyon, 1542) puts Flore back on the map of important French female authors, both for English-speaking readers and for scholars interested more broadly in early modern French print culture. The transcription of the French text, complete with bibliographic details from the first edition, pairs beautifully with Peebles’s dynamic and engaging translation. Peebles’s introduction elegantly shows how Flore’s text stands as a significant textual and material representative of one of the most artistically rich and culturally tumultuous times in early modern France. Her edition and translation will no doubt become a principal reference for future scholarly work not only on Jeanne Flore, but also on female authorship, gender, and print culture in early modern France and Europe."  

Kelly Digby Peebles earned her PhD in French at the University of Virginia in 2010, specializing in literature of the French Renaissance. She now lives in South Carolina, where she is Assistant Professor of French in the Department of Languages at Clemson University. Marta Rijn Finch is an award-winning New England poet. She studied Latin, Greek, Russian, and Chinese, then lived in France for six years with her husband and two daughters, where she attended the Sorbonne, and translated the poetry of philosopher Simone Weil. Her earlier work for the Other Voice series, the Complete Poems of Pernette du Guillet, edited by Karen James, was published in 2010.