This study examines the genealogical trajectory of the paratranslated elements of Beauvoir’s original French text Le deuxième sexe and its English translations. Specifically, the analysis focuses on both textual and iconic paratexts to investigate the role they play in the transgenerational reception of Beauvoir’s text. In terms of textual paratexts, non-authorial peritextual items such as introductions, biographical notes, and blurbs are studied comparatively and diachronically across all existing French and English editions. Secondly, iconic paratexts such as front and back cover images, as well as author photographs are studied in order to understand the ways in which both Beauvoir and her text have been reconfigured differently over time to serve different socio-cultural agendas. Throughout the study, the author explores the role that gender plays in relation to paratexts, both in terms of how Beauvoir’s own authorial, gendered subjectivity is transmediated and transmogrified via paratextual devices and, how gender as a social construction, inflects the elaboration of paratexts.