SOURCE: Roberts, William. “New Light on the Authorship of Almahide.” French Studies 25, no. 2 (April 1971): 271-80.

In the essay below, Roberts presents evidence that Scudéry, not his sister, wrote Almahide.

Since its appearance in 1660-63, a long-term controversy has gone on concerning the true authorship of a rather rare eight-volume Moorish novel Almahide, ou l'esclave reine, printed by the well-known Parisian publisher Augustin Courbé. In spite of the title-page crediting its origin to ‘Mr de Scudery, Gouverneur de Nostre Dame de la Garde’, the privilege granted to ‘le Sieur de Scudéry’, and the dedicatory letters signed by him, libraries to this day continue to classify it under the name of his sister Madeleine.¹ This practice stems probably from the authority of Nicéron, Graesse and especially Brunet who considered the attribution that had earlier been made to Georges ‘mal à propos’.² Eugène Asse in La Grande Encyclop...