Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Marie de Sévigné
-
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.
Lady Dacre's friends called her a Sévigné
for her letter-writing, but she told them to destroy her letters. Not all of them complied, but no doubt some of them did.
Barbarina Charlotte, Lady Grey,. A Family Chronicle. Editor Lyster, Gertrude, John Murray.
19-20
Textual Features
Matilda Betham-Edwards
MBE
observed in her introduction to French Fireside Poetry that in France the poetesses have hitherto taken lower rank than the great prose-writers Sévigné
and Sand
. She mentions but does not translate the unhappy...
Textual Features
Mathilde Blind
MB
's other Byron introduction, to her selection of his letters and journals, positions the genre (with reference to human curiosity, and to the epistolary novel as well as to the letters of Sevigné
and...
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, p. vii - viii; various pages.
The second volume opens with poems on On Heroism in Female Virtue and On the Friendship between two Ladies. MD
praises Elizabeth Montagu
, Marie de Sévigné
, Anne Bacon
, and others, some...
Literary responses
Emily Eden
The Times Literary Supplement reviewer praised these letters for humour, richness, spontaneity, and wit. The Spectator reviewer likened them to those of Madame de Sévigné
.
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Gale Research.
104
Textual Production
Catherine Fanshawe
The letters that CF
sent to Anne Grant
are not extant, but Grant's side of the correspondence leaves no doubt that the two were in constant dialogue about new books they had read, and their...
Intertextuality and Influence
Catherine Gore
Like CG
's Cecil he is a dandy in love with his own looks, which in his case include his exceptionally small size (said to be about that of a full-grown mouse). Of concomitant beauty...
Textual Features
Françoise de Graffigny
Compared with her celebrated predecessor Marie de Sévigné
, FG
writes an informal, colloquial, sometimes headlong style. Her subject-matter includes domestic trivia and expressions of mood, feeling, and opinion, as well as information about historical...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anne Grant
She likes her reading to be strenuous: she recommends Jane Austen
's Mansfield Park as light reading,
Grant, Anne. Memoir and Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan. Editor Grant, John Peter, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
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
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
.
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...
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.