SOURCE: "The Novels of Isabelle de Charrière, or, A Woman's Work is Never Done," in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Vol. XIV, 1985, pp. 299-306.

In the following essay, Jackson discusses the theme of women 's work in Charrière 's novels, noting that her conveying of "Everywoman 's experience of everyday life . . . provides a shining example of feminist revisionism already at work in the eighteenth century. "

If, as popular wisdom would have it, a woman's work is never done, then the eighteenth century witnessed no more womanly works than the novels of Isabelle de Charrière. In his Portrait of Zélide, Geoffrey Scott singles out Caliste, where the heroine dies, as "the only one of her tales that can be said to have a conclusion."¹ Caliste aside, Charrière's protagonists are routinely abandoned, whether at a crossroads or simply en route, before their fates can be decided...