Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (c.1695 – 29 December 1755) was a French author influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various précieuse writers.[1]
Barbot de Villeneuve was born in La Rochelle. She is particularly noted for her La Belle et la Bête, which is the oldest known variant of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.[1] First published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins, it is over a hundred pages long, containing many subplots, and involving a genuinely savage - i.e. "stupid" - Beast, not merely a change of appearance.[1] Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, to produce the version most commonly retold.[1]
She wrote a novel La Jardinière de Vincennes which reached a second edition in 1757. She was a close friend of the controversial writer Claude Jolyot de Crébillon. She died in Paris.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Windling, Terri. "Beauty and the Beast, Old And New". The Journal of Mythic Arts. The Endicott Studio.
External links
- Works by or about Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve at Internet Archive
- Works by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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