A monograph that examines the depiction of reading women in French art of the early Third Republic. It evaluates the pictorial significance of this imagery, its critical reception, and its impact on notions of femininity and social relations. It covers a broad range of paintings, prints, and sculptures.

A Yankee Book Peddler UK Core Title for 2012 'Brown’s book is an ambitious and valuable study that illuminates a diverse genre of painting with ample illustration (sixty images, reproduced in black and white) and contributes a nuanced account of the place of the liseuse in visual art as a subject caught between the aspirations of Republican gender politics and a more countercultural vision of reading’s potentially illicit or subversive possibilities.' French Studies 'The book’s principal value lies in its detailed examination and complication of the reader theme. It highlights the broader socio-cultural signification of reading as an index of female agency and a transportable form of intellectual privacy with broader implications for the historiography of nineteenth-century painting. Most important, perhaps, it challenges us to reconsider the spaces of modernity and women’s often ambiguous relationship to and incursions into the public sphere.' Woman’s Art Journal 'Kathryn Brown discusses [...] aspects of the woman reader in French painting in a comprehensive, thoughtful and well illustrated book which introduces its reader to some key concerns in this area of study.' Balliol College Annual Record '...a good introduction to the cultural debates surrounding female literacy in Early Third Republic France.' Nineteenth-Century French Studies