Foot Notes

by Nicolas-Edme Rétif de La Bretonne, Richard Robinson (Translator)

Choice excerpts (including the first 10 chapters in their entirety) from the sometimes bawdy, sometimes libertine novel, Le Pied de Fanchette (“Franchette’s Foot”), by Restif de la Bretonne. This new translation recounts the adventures (with many twists and turns) of a girl whose pretty feet attract nearly everyone she meets. Indeed, poor Fanchette is hounded by seducers wherever she goes.

Foot Notes is an amusing, provocative, and offbeat Cinderella story.

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1769

About the author

Nicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif (1734 – 1806), also known as Rétif de la Bretonne, was a French novelist. The term retifism for shoe fetishism was named after him. He has been described as both a social realist and a sexual fantasist in his writings.

Reviews

[Richard Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that started it all, or at least captured it, -- the whole modern shoe (not just foot) fetishism movement in France and the West, as early as 1769. The French word for shoe fetishism is retifism, based on the author Restif de la Bretonne's name. It's a lightly libertine tale, sometimes dark, others light, not unlike Cinderella, but longer, and no ball.