ABSTRACT
In France, the slower rate of female literacy, the preponderance of male sentimental novelists, and most importantly the differences in attitudes towards women in a Catholic and a Protestant country not only retarded the development of feminine fiction in France but also shaped the narrative structure of many of the novels. The extent of the feminine reading public, the class background and number of women writers, and their relative status within the literary world are all factors which distinguish nineteenth-century France from the United States. In the United States, contrary to the situation in France, the absence of a longstanding cultural tradition facilitated the entry of women into the field of writing. An increasing number of nineteenth-century American women writers are being re-edited and taught in women’s studies classes. Writers in the United States felt that in order to compete they had to produce fiction geared towards a feminine audience.
