D'Eon: The Wonder of Her Sex
Jonathan Conlin
Author, envoy, soldier, spy, the Chevalière d’Eon crossed boundaries of gender and nation, moving between France and Britain, and male and female. For forty years, in peace and in war, the Chevalier served Louis XV as censor, dragoon officer, secret agent and diplomat. The Chevalière spent the next forty years as a celebrity, famed for giving virtuoso displays of swordswomanship. Drawing on a raft of unpublished life writings, Conlin reveals for the first time how d'Eon used a range of genres and voices to tell the story of her transition. He provides a comprehensive account of d'Eon's place in trans history, Anglo-French relations, and celebrity culture.
Book Details:
- Author: Jonathan Conlin
- On Submission
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Jonathan Conlin
Jonathan Conlin is a historian of modern Britain with a particular interest in the history of museums and cultural institutions. Born in New York, he studied History and Modern Languages at Oxford, before moving to the Courtauld and then Cambridge for his doctorate. After a research fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and a brief stint at the BBC he moved to the University of Southampton, where he is Professor of Modern History.
In 2024 Jonathan published histories of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and London's National Gallery, the latter commissioned to mark the instit...
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Book Reviews
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"By far the best, most humane and deeply-researched account we have of the most celebrated personality of the age of Enlightenment and Revolution, who was baptised a boy but thought otherwise."
Colin Jones, author of Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress and The Shortest History of France -
"Conlin does not steer away from the complexities that made d’Eon’s identity possible: political plots, celebrity culture, and forgery. All were conducive to a story of self-fashioning we need now more than ever."
M. A. Miller, Washington State University