Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Woman Priest

The Woman Priest

Maréchal, Sylvain
Delany, Sheila

Paperback

Letters & EssaysLiterary CriticismChristian Living

ISBN10: 1772121231
ISBN13: 9781772121230
Publisher: University of Alberta Press
Published: Jan 23 2026
Pages: 104
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.30 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
My God! Pardon me if I have dared to make sacred things serve a profane love; but it is you who have put passion into our hearts; they are not crimes--I feel this in the purity of my intentions. --Agatha, writing to Zoé

In pre-revolutionary Paris, a young woman falls for a handsome young priest. To be near him, she dresses as a man, enters his seminary, and is invited to become a fully ordained Catholic priest--a career forbidden to women then as now. Sylvain Maréchal's epistolary novella offers a biting rebuke to religious institutions and a hypocritical society; its views on love, marriage, class, and virtue remain relevant today. The book ends in La Nouvelle France, which became part of British-run Canada during Maréchal's lifetime. With thorough notes and introduction by Sheila Delany, this first translation of Maréchal's novella, La femme abbé, brings a little-known but revelatory text to the attention of readers interested in French history and literature, history of the novel, women's studies, and religious studies.

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