@article{10.4159/harvard.9780674061323,
      recid = {438977},
      author = {Smith, Jay M.,},
      title = {Monsters of the Gévaudan the making of a beast /  [electronic resource] :},
      publisher = {Harvard University Press,},
      address = {Cambridge, Mass. :},
      number = {10.4159/harvard.9780674061323},
      pages = {1 online resource (378 p.)},
      year = {2011},
      abstract = {In a brilliant, original rendition, Monsters of the  Gévaudan revisits a spellbinding French tale that has  captivated imaginations for over two hundred years, and  offers the definitive explanation of the strange events  that underlie this timeless story.In 1764 a peasant girl  was killed and partially eaten while tending a flock of  sheep. Eventually, over a hundred victims fell prey to a  mysterious creature, or creatures, whose cunning and deadly  efficiency terrorized the region and mesmerized Europe. The  fearsome aggressor quickly took on mythic status, and the  beast of the Gévaudan passed into French folklore.What  species was this killer, why did it decapitate so many of  its victims, and why did it prefer the flesh of women and  children? Why did contemporaries assume that the beast was  anything but a wolf, or a pack of wolves, as authorities  eventually claimed, and why is the tale so often ignored in  histories of the ancien régime? Smith finds the answer to  these last two questions in an accident of timing. The  beast was bound to be perceived as strange and anomalous  because its ravages coincided with the emergence of  modernity itself.Expertly situated within the social,  intellectual, cultural, and political currents of French  life in the 1760s, Monsters of the Gévaudan will engage a  wide range of readers with both its recasting of the beast  narrative and its compelling insights into the allure of  the monstrous in historical memory.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/438977},
}