This chapter re-examines the idea that the development of the novel was hampered by politics during the French Revolution and that literary production was mediocre and ill-suited to the new social order. It studies the shift in the literary scene after the storming of the Bastille and the role of writers in regenerating the nation before considering the propagandistic works of republican writers during the radical phase of the Revolution. The death of the radical leader Robespierre in 1794 resulted in a clear shift in literary activity and prompted a move towards setting novels during the early 1790s which denounce the excesses of Robespierre and his supporters. The chapter places particular emphasis on the under-researched Directory period (1795-99) which is marked by a vogue for the Gothic and for fiction by and about émigrés.

While French literary history usually presumes a firm tradition of the epistolary novel running from Lettres portuguaises in 1669 to the end of the following century, this chapter demonstrates that the form's rise was protracted, and proceeded in two stages. A first, modest popularity was achieved by novels of satirical observation. Formally, these epistolary novels were distinct from the much more successful epistolary novels that followed, which featured a polyphonic exchange of correspondence. Viewed formally, the history of the epistolary novel in France is largely discontinuous, though the polyphonic variant's own development displays the same isomorphism visible in other novelistic artifacts examined in this book.

The European popularity of the novel of sentiment, particularly in France, changed the geography of reception for early Irish novels, with increased cultural exchanges taking place between Ireland and France. Frances Sheridan’s The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761) and Conclusion of the Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1767) were both translated into French within their first years of publication, for example, both novels clearly having been informed by French works. The audience in Ireland for sentimental writing from France was extensive, and works by Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni were particularly in demand. A comparative reading of the novels of Sheridan and Riccoboni reveals links in themes and style, form and emphasis, while also offering evidence for parallels in the two women’s experience of translation as a force of transnationalism. This chapter considers the careers and publication histories of Sheridan and Riccoboni in order to explore the intersections between Irish and French iterations of sentimental fiction in the 1760s and 1770s. It explores the writings of both women; their engagements with the world of translation; and the reception of their work. This chapter posits that transnational comparisons are essential to any understanding of ‘national’ traditions.