Marie-Anne de Bovet

Marie-Anne de Bovet (12 February 1855 – 25 February 1943) was a French writer. From 1893 to 1930, she published 35 novels, in addition to other works. Her last work was written in 1935 when she was 80 years old.

Biography

Marie-Anne de Bovet was born in Metz, France. She was the daughter of General Bovet. She married the Marquis de Bois-Hébert but she wrote under her maiden name.

Her writing career began in 1889 by publishing travelogues. Her work appeared in several magazines and newspapers in French and English. She was bilingual. As early as 1888, Bovet frequented the salon of Juliette Adam. She wrote literary criticism in La Nouvelle Revue, and traveled to Ireland on behalf of La République Française, a Gambetta newspaper. She wrote for La Vie Parisienne and the feminist newspaper, La Fronde, founded in 1887 by Marguerite Durand. Here, her articles included "Housewife or Harlot" (9 December 1897), where she attacked Maupassant and Proudhon's speeches on women, and "The Eternal Feminine" (22 December 1897), where she rejected the categorization of women. Bovet protested against misogynist prejudice and defended women's intelligence. During the Dreyfus Affair, she wrote for La Libre Parole, a strongly anti-Semitic newspaper. Though she traveled widely, she wrote mainly on Ireland (three books) and Algeria; she also visited Scotland, Greece and Poland.

She published her last work, La Grande Pitié du Sahara, in 1935. One year later, she sold her house in Gien and its furnitures, including numerous autographed first editions. She spent time in Algiers in her later years, up to at least 1939. Her last known address is in Neuilly-sur-Seine. She died in Villejuif hospital on 25 February 1943.