Table of Contents
Praise for Seductress
Prioleau is almost incapable of writing a dreary sentence.... Delightful philosophy and wickedly wonderful advice.... Girlfriend, you need this book.Deirdre Donohue, USA Today
A whirlwind romp through the lives of the great temptresses of history.... This tantalizing book proves that real sex appeal begins in the brain.USA Today, Year End Round-Up
Ms. Betsy seems just the woman for the job of lauding the seductress.... [S]hes got the brains and the roots to tackle the sirens enormous historical import.... Prioleaus verve [is] infectious.
The Washington Post
The alluring Betsy Prioleau entices with her sirens song of the seductress.Vanity Fair
Fascinating.San Francisco Chronicle
Betsy Prioleaus sharp scholarship makes for entertaining reading.
Richmond Times Dispatch
Far from self-help guides and How-To-Have-Better-Sex for Dummies, historian and English professor Prioleau has gathered together historys sexiest vixens and given them a delicious voice. The women of Seductress harmonize that women can be feminist while being femme fatales.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Prioleau proves that it is brains, not just boobs, that powerful men crave.... [Her] charged-up history will spark smart unattached women to... hunt down their own Caesars to conquer.
Salon
Telling wonderfully peripatetic tales of self-possessed sirens and seductresses throughout the aeons, Prioleau makes a strong case for women to take back their ancestral birthright of sexy wholeness.... Wildly engaging reading and faultness scholarship.
Publishers Weekly
An exhuberant tribute to female physical, intellectual and spiritual power, Prioleaus book is a feast of language and ideas that spans centuries. BookPage
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raised in a Southern belle culture in Richmond, Virginia, Betsy Prioleau earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Duke University. She has been a scholar in residence at New York University and a professor at Manhattan College, and she is the author of Circle of Eros: Sexuality in the Work of William Dean Howells. She lives in New York City.
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To Phoebe
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The subject of the seductress is a siren song drawing everything to it: the whole realm of knowledge, imagination, and personal experience. With a song like that (regardless of the best libraries and inner resources), you need others. Since the idea for the book first dawned on me, through the actual five-year writing process, Ive been aided and sustained by an extraordinary group of people.
Theyve been there from the beginning. The strong charmeuses I grew up with in Richmond, Virginia, provided the core inspiration for Seductress. My mother, Adeline Howle Stevens, ranks foremosta sparky man magnet who taught me the ropes and the meaning of feminine sexual pride and fascination. Next were my schoolmates, neighbors, and the formative presence of African American women. From them I learned to boogie and admire female sexual agency in action.
More recently, I have Manhattan College to thankthe students of my Seductress in Fiction course and my colleagues, particularly Professors June Dwyer and Mary Ann Groves, who loaded me with information and literature. The most influential of these was Professor Mary Ann ODonnella stellar scholar, counselor, believer, and critical court of last resort.
The path from inception to realization was paved by too many to number. To Dr. Frederick Lane I owe key ideas and the courage to state them. And no one has ever been blessed with better boosters and coachesProfessor Edwin Cady, Sylvia Chavkin, and Sydelle Krameror the many informants (some of them strangers on planes) who directed me to potential seductresses. Claudia Thompson introduced me to Violet Gordon Woodhouse; Professor Mike Parker to Catherine Sedley; and Karen Gunderson to Grace Hartigan. Grace herself was a high point of my researcha great creator, great femme forte, and generous to a fault with her stories, wisdom, and hospitality. Soprano Kate Hurney supplied priceless information about Pauline Viardot; Sydney Stern about Gloria Steinem; and Dr. Jennie Freiman about contemporary female sexual dysfunction. I am also grateful to New York University for awarding me three productive semesters as Scholar-in-Residence.
Friends from every quarter contributed lavishly of their time and energy throughout the books preparation. Neide Hucks rescued me from countless time crunches and gave me crash courses on Brazilian and African American sexual mores. Both Ann Gaylord and Smidgie and Alasdair Macphail ran informal clip services on my behalf, and Barbara Thomas provided invaluable leads and contacts. From my French cousin Nicole Priollaud and Courmess neighbor Jean-Jacques Celrier, I received critical historical and cultural insights, plus numerous donations of books, articles, and photographs. Bookstore personnel at the Corner Bookstore and Crawford-Doyle also kept an eye out for me and my investigations, as did my oldest friends from RichmondKate Roy and Dixon Christian, Frances Lee Vandell, Meredith Scott, and the late Martie Davenport Reedwho endured long monologues and buoyed my morale.
Without the Allen Room at the New York Public Library, its director, Wayne Furman, and occupants, the book could never have been written. Ella Foshay deserves a halo for introducing me to it. There I had vital access to the librarys premier collection, peace and quiet, and the company of learned, helpful colleagues: Gloria Dek, Gretchen Besser, John Demaray, Rita Gelman, and Laura Schenone. All were prodigal with their knowledge, expertise, and encouragement. The Writers Room at the Mercantile Library was another sanctuary, and I thank Harold Augenbaum for the privilege of working there through one long, hot summer.
While I wrote, I was guided and assisted by a dream team of distinguished professionals. Besides my two translators, Chris Scala (French) and Carlos A. Johnson (Spanish), they include those who read and critiqued my manuscript: John Clubbe and Joan Blythe, Shelley Wanger, and my first editor, Dawn Drzal. Because of Molly Peacock, I found my voice, the figure in the carpet, and the title Silver Foxes for Chapter 4. She also revved my confidence and walked me through the rough patches. So did Renata Adler, a wise counselor who went out of her way for me on more than one occasion. My appreciation, too, to Polly Howells and the Women Writing Womens Lives group for inviting me to speak on the sorcires and giving me A-1 feedback. Were it not for computer mavens Kevin Meredith and Chris Arnett, Id have been lost; my PC crashed three times midstream.
Last are the indispensables: Edward Lavitt, my photography procurer; Marc Daniels, my artistic adviser; my agent, Eric Simonoff; and especially Peter Mayer, who believed in the manuscript and launched its publication. Brett Kelly, Jennifer Jackson, and Alessandra Lusardi have been life supports, and my editor, Molly Stern, more than that. To her brains and perfect editorial pitch, she adds the charm and alpha personhood of my seductresses.
