Madeleine de Scudéry (1607–1701)

Madeleine de Scudéry, known as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was born at Le Havre, France. Her older brother Georges Scudéry also became a writer. Their parents died during their childhood and they were raised by an uncle. He gave Madeleine an unusually well-rounded education for a 17th-century girl: besides the usual female accomplishments of drawing, dancing, painting, and needlework, she learned history, agriculture, medicine, cooking, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Greek. In 1637, following the death of her uncle, Mademoiselle de Scudéry moved to Paris with her brother. He found success as a playwright, and Madeleine originally published her works under his name. She never married. Madeleine was invited to join the famous circle of intellectual women at the home of the marquise de Rambouillet, known as the précieuses or bluestockings, and afterwards established a rival salon of her own. She's best remembered for her romans à clef (novels that described real events and relationships under disguised names), her volumes dedicated to the art of conversation, and for championing women's participation in rhetoric and literary culture. Her friends called her "the incomparable Sapho" after one of her pseudonyms. Molière satirized her and her circle in his plays Les Précieuses ridicules (1659) and Les Femmes savantes (1672).