Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis

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Standard Name: Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de
Birth Name: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest
Married Name: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis
Titled: Caroline Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis
Used Form: Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis
Used Form: Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Countess of Genlis and Marchioness of Sillery
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.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Fanny Kemble
Fanny's reading here was important to her. She later regarded her close knowledge of the Bible as the greatest benefit I derived from my school training,
Kemble, Fanny. Records of a Girlhood. Henry Holt, 1879.
81
though she condemned the writings of Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
Education Fredrika Bremer
As FB grew older, she became increasingly interested in novels. At the age of fifteen she was beyond measure happy
Bremer, Fredrika. Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works of Fredrika Bremer. Editor Bremer, Charlotte, Sampson Low, Son and Marston, 1868, https://archive.org/details/lifelettersposth00bremuoft/mode/2up.
34
to be allowed the privilege of reading fiction for a half hour every night...
Education Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan
Their father sent them there so that, following his wife's death and his bankruptcy, he could join a travelling company. At this Huguenot, French-speaking school they met the daughters of politician Henry Grattan and those...
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
LCA 's mother, Mary , Lady Wemyss, was born a Wyndham, a descendent of the writer Félicité, Mme de Genlis , and of her royal lover Philippe Egalité , Duc d'Orléans (who was also father...
Family and Intimate relationships Ada Leverson
AL 's daughter, Violet , married Major Guy Wyndham in June 1923; they had two children.
Speedie, Julie. Wonderful Sphinx: The Biography of Ada Leverson. Virago, 1993.
260, 262
Apart from her life of her mother, she published biographies of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Meeke
Her husband no longer had any duty to support her. At this time he was in Paris, making a living as an English teacher among the offspring of the French nobility, under the patronage...
Fictionalization Lady Eleanor Butler
Among many less formal honours during the ladies' lifetimes, the most extraordinary was LEB 's award of a French, ancien régime, military medal: the Croix St Louis. It is shown in a famous portrait of...
Friends, Associates Maria Edgeworth
While she was in Paris ME met the now elderly and impoverished Mme de Genlis , whose Adèle et Théodore she had translated in her early teens.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon, 1972.
197
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
In Paris HMW frequented Mme Roland 's salon, and she and Stone became close friends of Roland and her husband . Those who visited HMW early in her time in Paris included Mary Wollstonecraft (who...
Friends, Associates Lady Eleanor Butler
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis was at Plas Newydd in 1792 with her daughter (or reputed daughter) Pamela; and six years later, in May 1798, Pamela (now Lady Edward Fitzgerald ) was there again, putting a strain...
Friends, Associates Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan
On her first visit to Paris, she met Germaine de Staël , and formed lasting friendships with the marquise de Villette (Voltaire 's adopted daughter) and with Elizabeth Patterson (an American heiress, the abandoned...
Friends, Associates Emily Eden
EE 's friends included George Villiers (Lord Clarendon) and his sister Lady Theresa Villiers (later Lewis), and Pamela Fitzgerald (later Lady Campbell) .
Lady Campbell was the daughter of romantically-associated parents: Lord Edward Fitzgerald ...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS began making up stories in her sixth year, but wrote later, what they were I have not the least idea. I was too young to write them down; but when I had thought of...
Intertextuality and Influence Maria Edgeworth
The appearance of a rival translation (by some Ladies, unidentified, who had turned their polite accomplishments into earning skills as a result of falling into comparative poverty from ease and opulence) pre-empted publication...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Martha Sherwood
She began it in connection with the writing game shared with her sister: the exchange of letters in the voice of French characters, modelled on those of Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis in Adelaide and Theodore; or...

Timeline

1756: Jeanne Le Prince de Beaumont published Le...

Writing climate item

1756

Jeanne Le Prince de Beaumont published Le Magasin des enfants, a collection containing the first influential and literary formulation of the popular fairy story Beauty and the Beast.
Zipes, Jack. “The Origins of the Fairy Tale for Children or, How Script was Used To Tame the Beast in Us”. Children and Their Books: A Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie, edited by Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs, Clarendon Press, 1989, pp. 119-34.
125-6

1774: Louise d'Epinay, former friend and patron...

Writing climate item

1774

Louise d'Epinay , former friend and patron of Rousseau , published Conversations d'Emilie, a book on education for girls designed to counter the message of his Emile.
Goodman, Dena. Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters. Cornell University Press, 2009.
64-5, 151 and n78

4 June 1798: Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the United...

National or international item

4 June 1798

Lord Edward Fitzgerald , a leader of the United Irishmen and implicated in the ongoing Irish Rebellion, died in Newgate Prison, Dublin, of the effects of a wound sustained while resisting arrest.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.

1799: French novelist Sophie de Cottin published...

Writing climate item

1799

French novelist Sophie de Cottin published the first of her five highly popular novels, Claire d'Albe.
Finch, Alison. “Review of Sophie Cottins Claire dAlbe and Michael J. Calls study of Cottin”. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.
17
, No. 1, Oct. 2004, pp. 134-7.
135

Texts

Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Adèle et Théodore. M. Lambert et F.J. Baudouin, 1782, 3 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Drames sacrés à l’usage des jeunes personnes. Libraires associées, 1775.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Les chevaliers du cygne. Lemierre, 1795, 3 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Les petits émigrés. Onfroy; Fr. De Lagarde, 1798, 2 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Les veillées du château. M. Lambert, 1784, 3 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Les voeux téméraires. Belin, 1798, 3 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Mémoires inédits de madame la comtesse de Genlis. Ladvocat, 1825, 10 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. The Child of Nature. Translator Inchbald, Elizabeth, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1788.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. The Theatre of Education. Translators Starke, Mariana and Millecent Thomas, J. Walker, 1787, 4 vols.
Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de. Théâtre à l’usage des jeunes personnes. M. Lambert and F.J. Baudouin, 1780, 4 vols.