Perrault, Charles (1628–1703)

Perrault, Charles (1628–1703), Children's story writer. Though the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, and Sleeping Beauty are among the best known and most popular works of literature in the world, few people recognize the name of Charles Perrault, the man who is generally believed to be their author. Because his collection of stories, Histories; or, Tales of Times Past, was published under the name of Perrault's son, Pierre d'Armancour, there has always been some debate even about the authorship. Glenn S. Burne noted in Writers for Children that, according to the best evidence, "the stories were the work of Perrault in probable collaboration with the talented teenage boy, with whom he had a close relationship." Burne went on to say that Perrault published these tales near the end of his career, when his interests were elsewhere, and he probably had no idea that they would become so important.

Born on January 12, 1628, in Paris, France, Perrault was the youngest son of an eminent Parisian lawyer. Both his parents took an active part in educating their children and, when Perrault was sent to a private school at the age of eight, he was one of the top students in his class. Several years later his brilliance led him to argue with a teacher and leave school to study independently with a friend named Beaurain. In his autobiography, Memoires de Charles Perrault, Perrault described how the two boys got together mornings and afternoons for three or four years, reading in the course of that time most of the Bible and the classic authors. Perrault first tried his hand at writing when he, his older brother Claude (a medical student who became both a physician and an architect), and Beaurain adapted the sixth book of the Aeneid into comic verse, a popular literary practice of the time. Later the brothers collaborated on the first volume of Les Murs de troie ("The Walls of Troy").

In 1651 Perrault took the bar exam and was admitted to the practice of law. He soon became disillusioned with it, however, and left in 1654 to serve as a clerk to Claude, who had bought the post of Receiver General of Finances for the city of Paris—buying positions in the government and army was a common practice at the time. During this period Perrault was also continuing his studies and writing poetry, some of which was published and translated into Italian. In the mid-1660s he was appointed by Jean Baptiste Colbert, then Minister of Finance under King Louis XIV, to an advisory council that supervised the making of monuments, medals, and other works glorifying the king. Perrault became secretary to the council, which later became the French Academy, created "for the advancement and perfection of all sciences." When Colbert was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Buildings, he made Perrault his chief clerk. In this capacity Perrault had the pleasure of helping get his brother Claude's design chosen for the forefront of the Louvre Museum. In 1671 Perrault was formally admitted to the French Academy; in 1672 he became its chancellor and, in 1681, its director.

Perrault married Marie Guichon in 1672, and the couple had three sons and a daughter. Several years after his wife's death in 1678, Perrault decided to devote all of his time to writing and educating his children. As he stated in his autobiography, "With this in mind I went to live in the St. Jacques district [of Paris], which being near to the schools, gave me the great facility to send my children there, having always thought that it was best for children to come home to sleep in their father's house when it was possible rather than sending them to board in the school. . . . I gave them a tutor and I myself took great care to watch over their studies." Burne pointed out in Writers for Children that his wife's death may have been a factor in Perrault's writing the fairy tales, "since he maintained that such literature was an effective means of instilling values."

Though it is the fairy tales that are generally remembered, Perrault gained prominence as a literary figure with his poem "Le Siecle de Louis XIV," which he read to the Academy. In this poem he praised the superiority of modern letters as opposed to the classics, thus raising an argument that lasted for many years and brought his name into prominence.

Perrault died on May 16, 1703, at the age of seventy-five. Many critics believe that his now-familiar stories were half-forgotten folk tales that the author merely set down in a simple, readable form. In Contes Perrault said of them, "These sorts of tales have the gift of pleasing . . . great minds as well as lesser folk, the old as well as young folk; these idle fancies amuse and lull reason, although contrary to the same reason, and can charm reason better than all imaginable probability."

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