Marie de Sévigné

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Standard Name: Sévigné, Marie de
Birth Name: Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
Married Name: Marie de Sévigné
Titled: Marie, marquise de Sévigné
Used Form: Marie de Sevigne
MS , who lived and wrote in seventeenth-century France, is widely regarded as one of the world's great letter-writers. The standard scholarly edition contains 1,372 letters.
Head-and-shoulders painting of Marie de Sévigné by Claude Lefèbvre, c. 1665. She is in half-mourning, in a pale low-necked gown with puff sleeves and a lacy neckline tied with a dark bow. A grey scarf is tucked in. She has pearl ear studs, a pearl necklace, and dark curls around her face. She wears a slight smile. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Melesina Trench
In September 1811 MT was intending to publish the letters exchanged between Edward Tighe (who had written on Irish social issues) and Mansergh St George . She had drafted a preface but made no further...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT 's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
18
Later pages mix letters...
Textual Features Catherine Talbot
CT 's letters often convey her literary opinions, discussing writing by, for instance, Marie de Sévigné , Richardson , Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson . She also writes of the details of her daily life...
Publishing Arabella Shore
In addition to her poetry, AS published at least three significant pieces of literary criticism: essays on the contemporary, active George Meredith and on Marie de Sévigné for the British Quarterly Review in 1879 and...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Shelley
Most of MS 's subjects are male, but they include Vittoria Colonna , Marie de Sévigné , Manon Roland , and Germaine de Staël .
Friends, Associates Madeleine de Scudéry
Her friends and associates included novelist Marie Madeleine de Lafayette , letter-writer Marie de Sévigné , and maxim-writer La Rochefoucauld .
Textual Production A. Mary F. Robinson
In 1914 she produced, in French and again using her married name, Madame Duclaux, an edition entitled Mme. de Sévigné , textes. Years later, in 1927, she contributed the introduction to another edition...
Textual Production Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR published one of her favourite works, a biography of Madame de Sévigné.
Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, Vol.
2
, pp. 285-7.
290
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Julia Pardoe
JP did not aim to provide a record of the Sun King's public life for statesmen and politicians; she hoped instead to depict his private humanity as it was portrayed in the personal memoirs of...
Intertextuality and Influence Julia O'Faolain
The topics covered in richly informative detail, far too many to enumerate, include a father's life-or-death rights over his offspring in ancient Greece, while such topics as buying and selling sex, or the relation...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Judith Sargent Murray
She backs this pleasure in modernity with a remarkable grasp of former female history and of the women's literary tradition in English and its contexts. She mentions the Greek foremother Sappho , the patriotic heroism...
Literary responses Elizabeth Moody
The Gentleman's Magazine obituary of EM bestowed lavish praise on her letters, comparing them to those of Marie de Sévigné .
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
84 (1814): 2: 613
Wealth and Poverty Anne Marsh
Their move back to England was facilitated by a legacy of £5,000 from Anne's father.
Heath-Caldwell, J. J. “Letters, References and Notes (1780-1874), Relating to James Caldwell and Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell)”. Ancestors and Relatives of JJ Heath-Caldwell.
1839-1842
They bought the estate the previous year for £13,000 (including standing timber worth £3,280). AM sold the house, estate...
Education Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
Her education was remarkable even for her class. She even studied Hebrew as well as Latin, in which she was tutored along with the girl who later became Madame de Sevigné .
Textual Production Sarah Josepha Hale
SJH edited both The Letters of Madame de Sévigné , to Her Daughter and Friends and The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu .
Okker, Patricia. Our Sister Editors. University of Georgia Press, p. 264 pp.
231n31

Timeline

1671: Madame de Sévigné of France first brought...

Building item

1671

Madame de Sévigné of France first brought the sheath (condom) to public attention by writing disparagingly of it.

1758: Pierre-Joseph Boudier de Villemert published,...

Writing climate item

1758

Pierre-Joseph Boudier de Villemert published, allegedly at Hamburg, a book called L'Ami des femmes, which remarked on the number and excellence of women writers in French.

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

Sévigné, Marie de. Correspondance. Editor Duchêne, Roger, Gallimard, 1972.
Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy, and Marie de Sévigné. Les mémoires de messire Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy. J. Anisson, 1696.
Sévigné, Marie de. Letters of Madame de Rabutin Chantal, Marchioness de Sevigné, to the Comtess de Grignan, her daughter. N. Blandford, 1727.
Sévigné, Marie de. Letters of Madame de Sévigné to her Daughter and her Friends. Editor Aldington, Richard, George Routledge, 1927.