Aphra Behn aka « Astrea », her spy pseudonym which she chose based on Honoré d’Urfé’s work L’Astrée (1607), isn’t very well known in France, despite numerous biographies having been published on the other side of the Channel. Raising the serious issues of slavery, individual freedoms or women’s rights, her written work is ahead of its time. Employed as a secret spy for Charles II in the Netherlands, she was the first woman to be able to live from her writing under the Restoration period.

Truly worshipped across the Channel, Jane Austen (1775-1817) invented romantic comedy before its time, and her work continues to generate numerous adaptations in the form of manga, films and TV series today.

À la période des Lumières, la lettre devient le lieu où s’invente une nouvelle liberté de penser. Le siècle des correspondances voit ainsi se développer des amitiés épistolaires qui font le bonheur des écrivains, des philosophes et des hommes et femmes de lettres, parmi lesquels Voltaire, Rousseau, M^me du Deffand, Julie de Lespinasse ou encore M^me d’Épinay. L’écriture épistolaire se fait le terrain d’exercice favori d’une pensée en progrès.