Delphine de Girardin (24 January 1804 – 29 June 1855), pen name ''Vicomte Delaunay'', was a French author.

Life

de Girardin was born at Aachen, and christened Delphine Gay. Her mother, the well-known Madame

Sophie Gay Marie Françoise Sophie Gay (born Nichault de la Valette; 1 July 1776 – 2 March 1852) was a French author who was born in Paris. Biography Marie Françoise Sophie Nichault de la Vallette was the child of Francesca Peretti, an Italian woman and ...

, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary society. Her cousin was the writer

Hortense Allart Hortense Allart de Méritens (; pseudonym Prudence de Saman L'Esbatx; 7 September 1801 – 28 February 1879) was an Italian-French feminist writer and essayist. Her novels, based on her adventures, did not have much success, except for ''Les ench ...

. Gay published two volumes of miscellanea, ''Essais poetiques'' (1824) and ''Nouveaux Essais poétiques'' (1825). A visit to Italy in 1827, during which she was enthusiastically welcomed by the literati of Rome and even crowned in the capitol, produced various poems, of which the most ambitious was ''Napoline'' (1833). Gay's marriage in 1831 to

Émile de Girardin Émile de Girardin (22 June 180227 April 1881) was a French journalist, publisher and politician. He was the most successful and flamboyant French journalist of the era, presenting himself as a promoter of mass education through mass journalism. ...

opened up a new literary career. The contemporary sketches which she contributed from 1836 to 1839 to the ''La Presse'', under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of Charles de Launay, were collected under the title of ''Lettres parisiennes'' (1843), and obtained a brilliant success. ''Contes d'une vieille fille a ses neveux'' (1832), ''La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac'' (1836) and ''Il ne faut pas jouer avec la douleur'' (1853) are among the best-known of her romances; and her dramatic pieces in prose and verse include ''L'École des journalistes'' (1840), ''Judith'' (1843), ''Cléopâtre'' (1847), ''Lady Tartuffe'' (1853), and the one-act comedies, ''C'est la faute du mari'' (1851), ''La Joie fait peur'' (1854), ''Le Chapeau d'un horloger'' (1854) and ''Une Femme qui deteste son mari'', which did not appear till after the author's death, which occurred in Paris. Madame Girardin exercised considerable personal influence in contemporary literary society, and in her drawing-room were often to be found

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

, Alfred de Musset and

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

. Her collected works were published in six volumes (1860-1861).

References

Sources

* which in turn cites: ** Sainte-Beuve, ''Causeries du lundi'', t. iii. ** G. de Molenes, "Les Femmes poètes," in ''

Revue des deux mondes The ''Revue des deux Mondes'' (, ''Review of the Two Worlds'') is a monthly French-language literary, cultural and current affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829. According to its website, "it is today the place for debates a ...

'' (July 1842) ** Taxile Delord, ''Les Matinées littéraires'' (1860); ''L'Esprit de Madame Girardin, avec une préface par M. Lamartine'' (1862) ** G. d'Heilly, ''Madame de Girardin, sa vie et ses œuvres'' (1868) **

Imbert de Saint Amand Imbert may refer to: People *Antonio Imbert Barrera (1920–2016), Dominican military figure and politician, President of the Dominican Republic in 1965 *Barthélemy Imbert (1747-1790), French playwright, poet and novelist *Carmen Imbert Brugal (bor ...

, ''Mme de Girardin'' (1875)

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Girardin, Delphine de 1804 births 1855 deaths 19th-century French novelists 19th-century French women writers French women novelists People from Aachen Pseudonymous women writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers