Germaine de Staël

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Standard Name: Staël, Germaine de
Birth Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker
Married Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël
Used Form: Germaine de Stael
GS is remembered primarily for her political activism and the salons she established following the French Revolution; history, politics, and culture were certainly among her frequent literary subjects. The same interests inform her highly successful and influential novels, some short stories and, less significantly, plays. Other writings include literary criticism and personal letters.
Winegarten, Renee. Mme de Staël. Berg.
81
Her anglophilia and her attention to English literature and culture gave her particular importance for British women writers.
Photograph of the painting of Germaine de Staël by Baron Gérard. Godefroid, 1810. She stands leaning against a stone table. She is wearing a red high-waisted dress with short puff sleeves and a small cameo brooch pinned in the centre of the bust, a black shawl folded over her arm, and a striking red and white turban on her curly hair. She holds a small sprig of green in one hand.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Occupation Henri-Frédéric Amiel
He became a philosopher and a professor of aesthetics, and published a number of books including a study of Germaine de Staël . His best known work, however, was his diary. It exerted an influence...
Travel Jane Austen
During the next few years she made half a dozen primarily business visits to London. She mixed in society but (probably in September 1814) declined to meet Germaine de Staël .
Le Faye, Deirdre. “Chronology of Jane Austen’s Life”. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-11.
9-10
Fergus, Jan. “The Professional Woman Writer”. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press.
13
Fergus, Jan. Jane Austen: A Literary Life. St Martin’s Press.
137
Textual Production Jane Austen
John Murray was apparently planning a collected edition of JA 's novels in 1831, when Cassandra Austen wrote on 20 May with detailed queries about it, but the project did not go through. A year...
Friends, Associates Joanna Baillie
Through her friendship with Mary Berry , JB met Germaine de Staël .
Carhart, Margaret S. The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie. Archon Books.
45
Friends, Associates Joanna Baillie
On 11 May 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded in his diary meeting JB and other women writers on a visit to Miss Benjers (Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger ). In his account of this pleasant evening...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Having already praised many contemporary women writers in print, EOB was now able to meet them. The move to London was accomplished principally through the zealous friendship of Miss Sarah Wesley , who had already...
Friends, Associates Mary Matilda Betham
As well as meeting at Llangollen with Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (who later talked with high praise of her),
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons.
69, 70
MMB acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
Textual Production Mary Matilda Betham
MMB 's collateral descendant Ernest Betham makes much use in relating her family history of a Memorandum Book, from my Birth, 1776, till July, 1795, which covers some of the functions of both autobiography...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anita Brookner
AB relishes all this. But she writes with tactful sympathy of Germaine de Staël and her younger, mostly unreciprocating lovers, and of Judith Gautier (daughter of Théophile ), who deserves to be remembered not only...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Barrett Browning
By 1832 she had read Mme de Staël 's novel of the romantic female artist, Corinne, three times and claimed the immortal book ought to be reread annually.
Browning, Robert, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Brownings’ Correspondence. Editors Kelley, Philip et al., Wedgestone Press.
3: 25
She strongly admired the...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The authorial voice is forthright about the poet's own desire to be a literary trail-blazer for womankind, and she is already defining that task in terms of rejection of the domestic. She also has a...
Literary responses Willa Cather
A review by Randolph Bourne in the USA levelled much the same criticisms as William Heinemann in England.
Cather, Willa. On Writing. Editor Tennant, Stephen, Alfred A. Knopf.
96
H. L. Mencken , however, thought this book still more competent, more searching and convincing, better...
Family and Intimate relationships Georgiana Chatterton
GC was born at the home of a maternal aunt, Margaret Pitt , wife of William Morton Pitt. A beautiful woman, Georgiana's aunt moved among the leading figures of her day. She spent time at...
Intertextuality and Influence Georgiana Chatterton
She headed her chapters with quotations which draw on European as well as English literature: Petrarch , Byron , Germaine de Staël . In its early stages the book may read like a courtship novel...
Textual Features Lydia Maria Child
LMC 's first four subjects were all known for their writings and for their resistance to tyrannical authority, either political or religious, but she is more interested here in what she alleges to have been...

Timeline

1804: The publisher George, George, and John Robinson,...

Writing climate item

1804

The publisher George, George, and John Robinson , whose list of women writers had been distinguished, went bankrupt.

1864: Famous Girls who have become Illustrious...

Writing climate item

1864

Famous Girls who have become Illustrious Women: Forming Models for Imitation by the Young Women of England, a very popular book of biographical sketches by John M. Darton , was published.

By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...

Writing climate item

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,

Texts

Staël, Germaine de. Considérations sur les principaux événemens de la révolution françoise. Delaunay, 1818.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne. Imprimerie des Annales des arts et manufactures, 1807.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., R. Bentley, 1833.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., A. L. Burt, 1857.
Staël, Germaine de. De l’Allemagne. H. Nicolle, 1810.
Staël, Germaine de. De l’influence des passions. Jean Mourer, 1796.
Staël, Germaine de. De la littérature. 1800.
Staël, Germaine de. Delphine. J. J. Paschoud, 1802.
Staël, Germaine de. Dix années d’exil. Treuttel and Würtz, 1821.
Staël, Germaine de, and Germaine de Staël. “Essai sur les fictions”. Recueil de morceaux détachés, Durand, Ravenel, 1795, pp. 61-4.
Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and Germaine de Staël. Le plus beau de toutes les fêtes. Editor Pange, Victor de, Klincksieck, 1980.
Staël, Germaine de. Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J.-J. Rousseau. 1788.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur la paix. 1794.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur le procès de la reine. 1793.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur le suicide. Charles Delén, 1813.
Hill, Isabel et al. “Translator’s Preface; Madame de Staël”. Corinne; or, Italy, translated by. Isabel Hill and L. E. L., A. L. Burt, 1857, p. iii - iv; v-xxi.
Staël, Germaine de. Zulma. 1794.
Staël, Germaine de. Œuvres complètes. Treuttel and Würtz, 1821.