Author

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, eighteenth-century portrait by an unidentified painter.
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, eighteenth-century portrait by an unidentified painter. Source · Public domain

About Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1780) was born in Rouen and educated in a convent school, where she later taught. After an unhappy marriage was annulled she moved to London around 1748 and worked as a governess to English families. There she wrote and published in French a long series of educational books for children and young women, the best known being Le Magasin des enfants (1756), in which a governess teaches her pupils through conversation, Bible stories, history, geography and moral tales. She later returned to the Continent and lived in Savoy, continuing to write until her death.

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Beauty and the Beast

1756 · 18th Century · Short Stories

A rich merchant has three sons and three daughters. The youngest daughter is so lovely that everyone calls her Beauty, and she is also the kindest; she spends her time reading good books, while her two proud elder sisters go to balls and plays and refuse every suitor below a duke or an earl.

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