Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is for most people the author of one book: "Paul et Virginie." This new edition of his play "Empsael et Zoraide," presented in a modernised spelling, makes available a considerably more muscular text which illustrates his abolitionist stance through its central irony: the masters are black and their slaves white, joining forces in the antislavery debate which reached its height with the French Revolution. Bernardin thus introduces into it a rare element of humour which, had his play ever been performed, would have made his audiences sit up and think. This will be of interest to scholars and senior students interested in Black Studies, the French Enlightenment and the literature of revolution.

Ourika is the story of an African girl growing up in France: based on a true story, it was a runaway bestseller following its first publication in Paris in 1823. It is now seen as a novel of exceptional psychological penetration and intercultural interest, anticipating Fanon in several ways. Race, class and the role of women in society are key issues it raises. Ourika is acknowledged by John Fowles to have inspired his novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. This is a corrected and updated reprint of the 1998 second edition of this text, first published by University of Exeter Press in 1993 in the series Exeter French Texts/Textes litteraires. It is one of the most consistently successful volumes in the series, frequently used as a teaching text on university and other courses.

These three tales, hailed by Diderot among others, but unpublished for over a century (and in one case for nearly two centuries), are a fictional exploration of Otherness and the intercultural set in the New World, either among native Americans (Abenakis, Iroquois) or runaway slaves in Jamaica befriended by Quakers. They argue powerfully for a reassessment of the philosophe Saint-Lambert, since they represent a significant contribution to the anti-slavery debate of the time and to a consideration of cultural relativity, revitalised by recent postcolonial discourses. This title is Volume 99 in the series Exeter French Texts/Textes litteraires. It includes an introduction, select bibliography and essential notes, all in French.