Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir , 1908-86, French author. A leading exponent of the existentialist movement, she is closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre . Beauvoir taught philosophy at several colleges until 1943, after which she devoted herself to writing. Her novels All Men Are Mortal (1946, tr. 1955), The Blood of Others (1946, tr. 1948), and The Mandarins (1955, tr. 1956) are interpretations of the existential dilemma. Among her most celebrated works is the profound analysis of the status of women, The Second Sex (1949-50, tr. 1953). Her study The Marquis de Sade (tr. 1953) is a brilliant, perceptive portrait. Her monumental treatise The Coming of Age (1970, tr. 1972) is an exhaustive historical consideration of the social treatment of the aged in many cultures. Beauvoir's autobiographical writings include Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958, tr. 1959), The Prime of Life (tr. 1962), Force of Circumstance (1963, tr. 1964), A Very Easy Death (1964, tr. 1966), and All Said and Done (tr. 1974). She also edited Sartre's letters to her (tr. 1994).

Bibliography: See biography by D. Bair (1990); S. de Beauvoir, ed., Quiet Moments in a War: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir, 1940-1963 (1994); studies by E. Marks (1973), L. Appignanesi (1988), K. and E. Fullbrook (1994), and H. Rowley (2005).

Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–86), French novelist and essayist whose novels reflect the major preoccupations of the existentialist movement. Perhaps her greatest impact on English literature was through her seminal feminist work Le Deuxième sexe (1949; as The Second Sex, 1953). See feminist criticism.

Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–86) French novelist, essayist, and critic. Her novels She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins (1954) are portraits of the existentialist intellectual circle of which she and her lifelong companion, Jean-Paul Sartre, were members. Her best-known work is the feminist treatise The Second Sex (1949). Other significant works include The Prime of Life (1960), A Very Easy Death (1964), and Old Age (1970). See also existentialism