Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis

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SFG , French aristocrat, royal mistress, and later a political refugee in England, made her mark as an educational theorist and writer for children (plays, stories, and good advice) during the decade leading up to the French Revolution. She also published adult novels, romances, and an autobiography. In England at least it was her writing for children that was admired and influential.

Milestones

21 January 1746

Caroline Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest (later SFG ) was born the eldest of her family at Champcéry, near Autun, in the French region of Burgundy.
Broglie, Gabriel de. Madame de Genlis. Librairie Académique Perrin.
13
Trousson, Raymond. Romans de femmes du XVIIIe siècle. Robert Laffont.
774

1775

SFG published in Paris a collection of playlets loosely based on Bible stories, for children to act: Drames sacrés à l'usage des jeunes personnes.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1825

The nearly eighty-year-old SFG published her memoirs: Mémoires inédits . . . sur le dix-huitième siècle.
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. J. M. Dent.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

31 December 1830

SFG died in Paris; some sources say her death was after midnight and give it the next day's, and year's, date.
Scholar Gillian Dow provides the assurance that the 1830 date is correct.
Broglie, Gabriel de. Madame de Genlis. Librairie Académique Perrin.
464-5
Trousson, Raymond. Romans de femmes du XVIIIe siècle. Robert Laffont.
777

Biography

Her full name in English was Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Countess of Genlis and Marchioness of Sillery .
Dow, Gillian. “<span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Adelaide and Theodore; or, Letters on Education</span&gt”;. The Female Spectator (1995-), Vol.
11
, No. 1, p. 5.
5

Birth and Background