Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon (1664–1734)

Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon was born in Paris into a family of scholars, the daughter of Nicolas L'Héritier de Villandon, a writer. She published in a wide range of fields but is best remembered, like her uncle Charles Perrault, for writing fairy tales, a vogue among French aristocrats of the period that she helped establish. La Tour ténébreuse et les jours lumineux (1703) contained one of her best known, the tale of Ricdin-Ricdon. She also translated Ovid's Heroides (1732) and edited the memoirs of the duchesse de Longueville (1709). She was a close friend and protégé of Madeleine de Scudéry, whose salon she took over after her death in 1701. In Le Triomphe de Madame Deshoulières (1694) and L'Apothéose de Mademoiselle de Scudéry (1702), she paid tribute to her mentors. She also wrote numerous poems published in the popular journal Le Mercure Galant. She was named to the Académie de Toulouse in 1696 and the following year to the prestigious Accademia dei Ricovrati in Padua.