It would be possible to write a history of the eighteenth-century French novel which referred only to works by women. The result would be a rather strange route-map, with some of the dominant features of the landscape blotted out (no Marivaux, Prévost, Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos), but it would cover most sub-genres of the novel and give a reasonably accurate indication of the evolution of the genre over the century. As eighteenth-century readers and critics knew, women were not occasional and marginal novelists. They were part of the mainstream.

Women were successful as novelists partly for negative reasons: the problems of apprenticeship and work opportunities made a career in music, painting or as a playwright a difficult one for a woman.* By comparison, the novel allowed a more ready outlet for their creativity. This is not to suggest that the genre offered dilettantes an easy opportunity to publish. Many eighteenth-century women novelists lived by their pen, often out of necessity, had to negociate with publishers and agents, promote their works, and, in a general way, develop their name and reputation – for many, writing novels was a profession.

The success of women novelists was in part the result of a double depreciation, of the genre, and of women. The critical establishment of the period was male, and conservative. It viewed the novel as a parvenu genre.