Name Gabrielle-Suzanne de Books Beauty and the Beast | Role Author Movies Beauty and the Beast | |
Similar People Jeanne‑Marie Leprince de Beau, Diane Eskenazi, Wilhelm Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Warwick Goble | ||
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (c.1695 – 29 December 1755) was a French author influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various precieuse writers.
Barbot de Villeneuve was born in La Rochelle. She is particularly noted for her La Belle et la Bete, which is the oldest known variant of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. First published in La jeune americaine, 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. Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, to produce the version most commonly retold.
She authored the novel "La Jardiniere de Vincennes," which saw a second edition published in 1757. She maintained a close friendship with the provocative writer Claude Jolyot de Crebillon. Her life came to an end in Paris.