Born into an upper-middle-class family in 1803, Thérèse-Adèle Husson was a
French writer in the post-
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society.
Definition
The term—bot ...
period. At the age of nine months, she became
blind as a result of
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...
. She wrote more than a dozen
children's novels
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...
. She also wrote an autobiography, dictated to two different writers, which was sent to the director of the
Quinze-Vingts Hospital in 1825. This autobiography was later discovered by
Zina Weygand in the hospital's archives, and with the assistance of
Catherine Kudlick, Weygand translated the work and published it as ''Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France''. The book is known for being the first French-language book by a blind person about blindness. Husson died in 1831 following severe burns received when her apartment caught on fire.
External links
NWSA Journal Vol.14, No.3 (Autumn 2002)British Library Direct: Reading a Life Between the Lines: Therese-Adele Husson's Reflections on Blindness, by G, KleegeThe Holman Society Presents: Selected Reflections on the Physical and Moral Condition of the Blind (1825)
See also
*Louis Braille
Louis Braille ( ; ; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system named after him, braille, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virt ...
, Braille
Braille ( , ) is a Tactile alphabet, tactile writing system used by blindness, blind or visually impaired people. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone device ...
French blind people
French writers with disabilities
1803 births
1831 deaths
19th-century French women writers
Literature about blindness
Blind writers
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