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.
Painting of Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1790. She is seated in a green upholstered chair, her arms folded on her lap, one hand holding a small fan. She wears light green gloves, a blue silk dress with layers of neckerchiefs and a lacy bow at the neck. Her curly, powdered hair is partly covered by a lace bonnet with huge silvery bows.

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, 1985.
13
Trousson, Raymond. Romans de femmes du XVIIIe siècle. Robert Laffont, 1996.
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.
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, 1958.
OCLC WorldCat.
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, 1985.
464-5
Trousson, Raymond. Romans de femmes du XVIIIe siècle. Robert Laffont, 1996.
777

Biography

Her full name in English was Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Countess of Genlis and Marchioness of Sillery .
Dow, Gillian. “Adelaide and Theodore; or, Letters on Education”. The Female Spectator (1995-), No. 1, p. 5.
5

Birth and Background

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