[3] Her second book, Having It All in the Belle Epoque: How French Women’s Magazines Invented the Modern Woman (Stanford UP 2013), explored how two innovative publications, Femina and La Vie Heureuse, constructed a new female role model who could balance femininity with feminism.
[4] Mesch's most recent book is Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth Century France, which was supported by a Public Scholar fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Before Trans presents linked biographies of three writers, Jane Dieulafoy, Rachilde, and Marc de Montifaud, who pushed the boundaries of gender identity.
[5] Their intricate, personal stories provide vital historical context for our own efforts to understand the nature of gender identity and the ways in which it might be expressed[6] Her writing can also be found in the LA Review of Books, Slate, Tablet magazine, Lilith, and the Wonders & Marvels history blog.
Mesch was a 2020 finalist for the American Library in Paris Book Award[7] for Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France.