Hippolyte Masson Portrait of Marie Mennessier-Nodier

Marie-Antoinette-Élisabeth Mennessier-Nodier (26 April 1811 – 1 November 1893) was a French musician, poet, and writer, the daughter of

Charles Nodier Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier (29 April 1780 – 27 January 1844) was a French author and librarian who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the ''conte fantastique'', gothic literature, and vampire tales. His dream related writings ...

. She was largely overshadowed by her father and was well known in his literary circles at the Arsenal.

Life and work

Marie Nodier was born in Quintigny, the daughter of Charles Nodier (1780–1844) and Désirée Charve. Growing up in the company of her father's associates (who included such figures as

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 ...

) she took to art, music, and literature at a young age. She played the piano and composed a set of fifteen

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...

s ''Mélodies Romantiques'' (1831).

Alfred de Musset Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (; 11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.His names are often reversed "Louis Charles Alfred de Musset": see "(Louis Charles) Alfred de Musset" (bio), Biography.com, 2007 ...

(1810–1857) dedicated a poem in 1843 to her and

Félix Arvers Félix Arvers (July 23, 1806 – November 7, 1850) was a French poet and dramatist, most famous for his poem ''Un secret''. Born in Paris, Arvers abandoned his law career aged 30 to concentrate on theatre. His plays gained moderate success in th ...

(1806–1850) wrote a sonnet "Sonnet d'Arvers" to her in her notebook. She married Jules Mennessier at the age of 19, the couple lived in Arsenal and later

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

. Her father sold many of his books to pay her dowry. In 1836 she published "La Perce-neige" and after the death of her father, she wrote a memoir on his life. She contributed a letter from a swallow to a canary raised in a convent as part of the illustrated parody '' Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux'' (1842). As a monarchist, she had a fear of revolutions and was worried for her children during various periods of public unrest. She lived a private life and stayed away from the literary scene from 1844 when she also took on the name Mennessier-Nodier. After the death of her father in 1844 and her mother in 1856, she wrote a book on her father which was published in 1867. Jules retired in 1869 and they had four children. She died at

Fontenay-aux-Roses Fontenay-aux-Roses () is a Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. In 1880 a girls school École Normale Supérieure was opened in the town. It was one of ...

References

External links

Charles Nodier : épisodes et souvenirs de sa vie
(1867, Mennessier-Nodier's biography of her father)
Mélodies romantiques
(1831) 1811 births 1893 deaths 19th-century French writers 19th-century French women writers People from Bourgogne-Franche-Comté {{France-writer-stub