"Few academic books have given rise to blogs ( Plus ça change ) and articles published by Slate.com ("Having It All. In France. 100 Years ago."). These online publications are a testament both to Rachel Mesch''s lively, jargon-free prose and the surprising lessons in her wonderful new study that are applicable even to our lives today . Mesch''s engaging, entertaining study is a lovely addition to Belle Époque, feminist, and media studies. Her scholarship demonstrates her talents as a close reader of texts and images and a great synthesizer of cultural events.

"--Gayle A. Levy, Contemporary French Civilization "Offering a refreshing new vision of late-19th-century feminism, Mesch presents a compelling reinterpretation of two fin-de-siècle women''s magazines . Mesch''s book helps one view these women''s magazines in the context of their time and understand the feminist message they embodied for their readers . Highly recommended."--S. E. Cline, CHOICE "[W]ith its rich array of reproduced pages to illustrate points, and nice attention to the magazines'' visual as well as verbal discourse, this is a highly readable, enjoyable book that adds an important dimension to the study of how the vibrant feminist contestation of those years was mediated for and experienced by the majority of women."--Diana Holmes, French Studies "Through brilliantly constructed close readings of word and image in these magazines, Mesch brings to light a much more complicated picture of debates by and on women at the turn of the nineteenth century .

Many of the journalists used by, and writers depicted in, these magazines had literary ambitions. Indeed, one of the great virtues in having this material addressed by a scholar with a proper interest in cultural history, as well as securely anchored origins in the world of nineteenth-century French literary studies, is that she is able to identify novels of the period which addressed the issue of women''s magazines . Not only does Mesch identify such key texts in the relationship between journalism and fiction, but she also brings to bear in the cultural history the kind of close textual analysis for which literary interpretation is the best preparation."--Nicholas White, Times Literary Supplement "In the search for work-life balance, readers will marvel at suggestions that date back 100 years."-- Publishers Weekly "This book''s unique angle of analysis, wealth of quotations from primary sources, and many illustrations make it both a viable teaching tool and a scholarly resource."--Miglena Sternadori, Journal of Magazine and New Media Research "Mesch illuminates both the context that produced the paradox of ''having it all'' and the difficulties that arose as a result. Her book opens a window onto a distant and relatively unknown past, all the while shedding light on debates that are still very much alive today."--Susan Hiner, Vassar College "For too long, we have tended to view the Belle Epoque through the prism of the feminism of our own day--how it measures up or falls short of current standards.

By linking women''s magazines of the time to novels, visual imagery, and cultural practices, Mesch breaks out of this straitjacket, offering the most insightful and thorough examination of that space to date."--Lenard R. Berlanstein, University of Virginia " Having It All in the Bell Epoque provides a fine historical survey debating the history of high-achieving women and how the roots of these achievers can be traced back to early 1900s France. Two key photographic magazines for women created a female role model who embodied new freedoms and approaches for women, captivating large numbers of French women and setting the stage for a century of women''s rights changes. This focus on these publications provides new images of this modern French figure, analyzes artistic and literary trends contributing to the rise of this cultur.