'Réflexions sur le suicide' written during winter 1811-1812 first appeared in Stockholm and London in 1813. The subject of suicide runs through Madame de Staël’s writings from before the French Revolution. Slatkine Erudition recently published "Le Groupe de Coppet et la mort" (Ed. Léonard Burnand and Stéphanie Genand) - Travaux et recherches de l'Institut Benjamin Constant.
'Défense de la reine' (i.e. Réflexions sur le procès de la Reine) published anonymously in 1793 although it was public knowledge that Germaine de Staël was its author. It is de Staël's second avowed political writing.
'Lettres sur les écrits et le caractère de J.J. Rousseau' first published in 1788 without the author's consent launched de Staël's literary career and appears here with a new preface by her "Ces lettres ... furent publiées sans mon aveu, et ce hasard m'entraîna dans la carrière littéraire."
« Oh! vous, femmes de tous les pays, de toutes les classes de la société, écoutez-moi avec l’émotion que j’éprouve » (from the opening passage of the 'Réflexions sur le procès de la reine'), Marx and Engels echoing her words in 1848, "Workers of the world, unite!...” ? Marx appreciated de Staël, maybe her phrase inspired him. And from the conclusion: “Je reviens à vous, femmes immolées toutes dans une mère si tendre, immolées toutes par l’attentat qui serait commis sur la faiblesse (…)”. In any case, these words of Madame de Staël sound like an appeal for the liberation of women. --(R.Miller)
She pretty much invented comparative literature, thought up the term 'romanticism' and was an early celebrity: someone about whom everyone had a view. Byron said she was as 'frightful as a precipice'--writes Maria Fairweather in her biography of Madame De Staël (2005)