France's murder of the century remains also the most violent non-war crime by women against women on record. The Papin sisters' killing and mutilation of their mistresses in 1933 has provoked reproduction and speculation ever since, by such prominent cultural figures as Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Claude Chabrol. This book offers an overview of these reproductions and draws some provocative conclusions from them.
Introduction 1. The Facts of the Case 2. Mirrors, Fusions, and Splittings: The Papins, the fait divers, and the Psychoanalysts 3. Literary Reproductions 4. Cinematic Reproductions Conclusion Afterword Chronology Bibliography Index
Rachel Edwards is Lecturer in French, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Keith Reader is Professor of French, University of Glasgow