The five stories in ["When Things of The Spirit Come First: Five Early Tales"] were written after Miss de Beauvoir had abandoned several complete and partly complete early writings that were never offered for publication because of what she called "shoddy romanticism."…

She had already decided that fiction should be her means of expression and to this end began experimenting with short texts that fictionalized her own experiences as well as those of other women. In the five stories …, she wrote about five different approaches along as many different paths toward the discovery of the same personal truths….

Although the five stories are independent entities, the leading characters of some appear as background figures in the others. All the stories deal with the harm done to young women by the excessive religiosity that dominates their backgrounds and constricts the marital and educational opportunities and possibilities of behavior open...