Catriona Seth writes in both French and English with a particular focus on eighteenth-century literature and cultural history. She has edited several texts for Gallimard’s ‘Bibliothèque de la Pléiade’ (Laclos’ Les Liaisons dangereuses, Staël’s Œuvres and the Anthologie de la poésie française—in collaboration). She has published monographs on the 18th-century debates around inoculation (Les Rois aussi en mouraient) and on Creole poet Evariste Parny. Her work on Marie Antoinette includes an edition of the queen’s letters to Comte de Mercy, the Austrian Ambassdor to France, and an anthology of texts for Robert Laffont’s ‘Bouquins’ series.

Currently the Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College, Catriona Seth has held academic positions in France and numerous guest professorships. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Académie Royale de Belgique and of the Academia Europaea.