@destinybitten
May, 1795
“Got something for you!” announced Euryale, waving cheerily.
“So, I wrote to a few of my friends in Paris, with an eye to finding some good reading material for you - I didn’t mention your name, don’t worry - and, well, this just arrived!” she pressed a slightly-battered volume into Antoinette’s hands, entitled ‘Mary: a Fiction’.
Holding up a handwritten note, Euryale continued. “Aurelie says it’s by a British writer named Mary Wollstonecraft, that it’s a subversion of the sentimentalist genre of literature, with a heroine who is ‘swept with passionate relationships with both men and women’.” She looked up from the note. “I’m pretty sure I made it clear that you were interested in something of a more philosophical nature, along the lines of de Staël’s work... so I apologise in advance if this turns out to be terribly racy.”