Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (French: [ʒan maʁi ləpʁɛ̃s də bomɔ̃] ⓘ; 26 April 1711 – 8 September 1780) was a French novelist who wrote the best known version of Beauty and the Beast. Within many of her other works, she discussed reform for the roles of women in society. She urged women to become active participants in politics by providing them with literary instruction on how to become instrumental citizens.[1]
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 26 April 1711 Rouen, France |
| Died | 8 September 1780 (aged 69) Chavanod, Duchy of Savoy (now France) |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Spouse | |
| Relatives | Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (half-brother) Prosper Mérimée (great-grandson) |
Her contributions to children's literature and the fairytale genre mark her as one of the most popular and influential female writers of the eighteenth century.
Life and work
Christened Marie-Barbe, she was born in 1711 in Rouen, the daughter of Barbe Plantart and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, and died in 1778. She lost her mother when she was eleven years old. She and her younger sister were subsequently mentored by two wealthy women who enrolled them into the convent school at Ernemont in Rouen. Upon completing their educations, they remained there as teachers from 1725 to 1735.[2]
De Beaumont then obtained a prestigious position as a singing teacher to the children at the Court of the Duke of Lorraine, Stanisław Leszczyński, at Lunéville.[3]
Her first marriage was in 1737 to the dancer Antoine Malter. Details of a second marriage to Grimard de Beaumont are unclear. However, it is known that she bore a daughter, named Elisabeth, by Beaumont.
In 1748, having separated from Beaumont in reaction to his marital infidelities, she left France to become a governess in London.[4] She wrote several fairy tales, among them an abridged version of Beauty and the Beast, adapted from Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's original.[5] After a successful publishing career in England, she left that country in 1763 with her daughter Elisabeth and son-in-law Moreau. She lived first in Savoy, near the city of Annecy, then moved to Avallon near Dijon in 1774 (see her personal letter #21 dated 22 December 1774 to Thomas Tyrrell).
Her first work, the moralistic novel The Triumph of Truth (Le Triomphe de la vérité), was published in 1748. She published approximately seventy volumes during her literary career. Most famous were the collections she called "magasins," instructional handbooks for parents and educators of students from childhood through adolescence. She was one of the first to include folk tales as moralist and educational tools in her writings
She published the magazine Le Nouveau Magasin français, ou Bibliothèque instructive et amusante between 1750 and 1752, and contributed with articles to the British newspaper The Spectator during her years in London.[6]
In fiction
Because of her relationship in London with the French spy Thomas Pichon (1700-1781), she is a character in a novel entitled Crossings : A Thomas Pichon Novel, by A. J. B. Johnston. However, in that fictional appearance the dates for her relationship with Pichon are not accurate.[7]
Works
| Library resources about Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont |
| By Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont |
|---|
- Civan, roi de Bungo: Histoire japonnoise ou tableau de l'éducation d'un prince. Slatkine. 1998. ISBN 978-2-05-101683-4. (1st edition 1758)
- Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1983). La Belle et la Bête. Illustrator Willi Glasauer. Gallimard Jeunesse. ISBN 978-2-07-053881-2.
Fairy tales
- Magasin des enfants
- Le Prince Chéri (Prince Darling)
- La Curiosité (The Curiosity)
- La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast)
- Le Prince Fatal et le Prince Fortuné (Prince Fatal and Prince Fortune)
- Le Prince Charmant (Prince Charming)
- La Veuve et ses deux filles (The Widow and her Two Daughters)
- Le Prince Désir (Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess)
- Aurore et Aimée (Aurore and Aimée)
- Conte des trois souhaits (The Tale of the Three Wishes)
- Conte du pêcheur et du voyageur (The Tale of the Fisherman and the Traveler)
- Joliette
- Le Prince Tity (Prince Tity)
- Le Prince Spirituel (Prince Spirituel)
- Belote et Laidronette (Belote and Laidronette)
- Morlock te Money (Morlock te Money)
References
- Johns, Alessa (1999). "Reproducing Utopia: Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's "The New Clarissa"". Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques. 25 (2): 307–321. ISSN 0315-7997.
- Le Prince de Beaumont, Marie. Éducation complète ou Abrégé de l'histoire universelle. London: J. Nourse, 1753. 7.
- Letter from the second chaplain of King Stanislas to his nephew, a student at the University of Pont-à-Mousson, in the summer of 1743, in Mme. Leprince de Beaumont, 171Jeanne was a wonderful, bi, author1-1780, p.127, by A. Reynaud
- Sonya Stephens (2000). A history of women's writing in France. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58844-7.
- Windling, Terri. "Beauty and the Beast, Old And New". The Journal of Mythic Arts. The Endicott Studio. Archived from the original on 2014-07-26.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - "LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT | Dictionnaire des journalistes".
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- Johnston, A.J.B. (2015). Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel. Sydney: Cape Breton University Press. ISBN 978-1-77206-020-1. EPUB 978-1-77206-022-5, Kindle 978-1-77206-023-2, Web pdf 978-1-77206-021-8
External links
Works by or about Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont at Wikisource
Media related to Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont at Wikimedia Commons- Works by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont at Internet Archive
- Works by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- http://www.chawtonhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Leprince-de-Beaumont2.pdf