Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711–1780)

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont was born in Rouen, France, the eldest daughter of Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas Le Prince, a master sculptor, and his wife Marie-Barbe Plantart. Her mother died when she was 11 years old, after which she and her younger sister were sent to the convent school of Sacré-Coeur d'Ernemont near Rouen for their education. In 1736, Jeanne-Marie joined her father in Metz and obtained a prestigious position as a singing teacher to the children of the Duke of Lorraine at his court in Lunéville. Documentation of her marriage or two marriages is lacking, but it appears that in 1743 she married or took the name of Antoine Grimard de Beaumont, with whom she had a daughter. The couple separated and in 1748, Madame Leprince de Beaumont left France to become a governess to high society families in London, where she remained for about 15 years. There she wrote more than a dozen fairy tales, among them an abridged version of "Beauty and the Beast," adapted from Madame de Villeneuve's original. She published a moralistic novel, The Triumph of Truth (Le Triomphe de la vérité), and contributed articles to the British newspaper The Spectator. In 1763, she left England with her daughter and son-in-law and lived first in Savoy, near the city of Annecy, then moved to Avallon near Dijon. She published approximately 70 volumes during her literary career, which included her "magasins," or instructional handbooks for the parents and educators of children and teenagers, and young ladies about to be married. She was one of the first to include folk tales as moral and educational tools in her writings.