Although Renée Vivien led a life of wealth and privilege in belle epoque
Paris, she often felt like an outsider because she was attracted to
other women. Financially secure, she wrote books to suit her own taste
rather than that of the literary market. La dame à la louve, from 1904,
shows her at the height of her powers.These fierce, surprising stories
challenge moral hypocrisy and normative views about gender, beginning
with the title work, which offers a coded representation of same-sex
love in the seemingly inexplicable commitment between a woman and her
canine companion. The following stories feature a reimagined fairy tale
in which Prince Charming turns out to be a young woman, a western
adventure whose narrator goes mad with thirst, and other unconventional
narratives that range across time and space.