The Comely Cook and the “Belles Infidèles”: Reflections on the Possible Influence of Eighteenth-Century French Translations of English Novels on Čulkov's Work

This article reconsiders the question of whether Defoe's Moll Flanders served as a source for Chulkov's Comely Cook. The most likely intermediary was the 1761 French translation, entitled Mémoires et avantures de Mademoiselle Moll Flanders, a so-called “belle infidèle”. Since it is more a French novel on English subject-matter than a translation, it is closer in tone and purpose to Chulkov's work than Defoe's original. Similarities in plot structure, episodes and elements of characterization, as this article shows, support a connection. Our findings suggest that the intensive “frenchifying” of European fiction by eighteenth-century translators may account for difficulties in identifying foreign sources for the Russian literature of the time.