ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Marie Jeanne Riccoboni’s final (epistolary) novel, Lettres de Mylord Rivers à Sir Charles Cardigan (1777), the only polyphonic novel and with a male title character and protagonist. Marijn S. Kaplan argues that paradoxically, this novel displays the culmination of what she terms Riccoboni’s “epistolary feminism,” epistolarity used to promote proto-feminism, as theory and praxis converge to create the ultimate victory of the female voice; this radically contradicts previous, less feminist analyses of the novel. Kaplan also identifies a compromise on voice in this final novel by Riccoboni, according to which men and women can coexist peacefully if men respect women. The empowered female voice is then shown to (be able to) silence the male voice.
