Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (20 June 1786 – 23 July 1859) was a French poet and novelist. She was born in Douai. Following the French Revolution, her father's business was ruined, and she traveled with her mother to Guadeloupe in search of financial help from a distant relative. Marceline's mother died of yellow fever there, and the young girl somehow made her way back to France. At age 16, back in Douai, she began a career on stage. In 1817 she married her husband, the "second-rate" actor Prosper Lanchantin-Valmore. She published Élégies et Romances, her first poetic work, in 1819. In 1821 she published the narrative work Veillées des Antilles. It includes the novella Sarah, a contribution to the genre of slave stories in France. Marceline appeared as an actress and singer in Douai, Rouen, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, where she notably played Rosine in Beaumarchais's Le Barbier de Séville. She retired from the stage in 1823. She later became friends with the novelist Honoré de Balzac, and he once wrote that she was an inspiration for the title character of La Cousine Bette. The publication of her innovative volume of elegies in 1819 marks her as one of the founders of French Romantic poetry. Her poetry is also known for taking on dark and depressing themes, which reflects her troubled life. She is the only female writer included in the famous Les Poètes maudits anthology published by Paul Verlaine in 1884. A volume of her poetry was among the books in Friedrich Nietzsche's library. Bibliography Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article: 1819: Élégies et romances 1825: Élégies et poésies nouvelles 1833: Les Pleurs 1839: Pauvres Fleurs 1843: Bouquets et prières 1860: Poésies inédites (posthumous) Notes External links People from Douai 1786 births 1859 deaths French women novelists French women poets Poètes maudits Burials at Montmartre Cemetery 19th-century French actresses French stage actresses 19th-century French opera singers 19th-century women writers