Briet, Marguerite de (c. 1510–c. 1550)

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Briet, Marguerite de (c. 1510–c. 1550)

French novelist and translator. Name variations: (pseudonym) Hélisenne de Crenne or Helisenne de Crenne. Born c. 1510 (some sources cite 1500) in Picardy, France; died c. 1550 (some sources cite 1560).

Wrote Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours (1538), which was seen by some critics as the 1st feminine journal in French due to its autobiographical elements and factual details; published Les Epistres familieres et invectives (1539), possibly the 1st epistolarly novel in French; though her view of love follows the chivalric tradition, writings often address female readers and defend women's right of access to intellectual activity; also wrote the 1st French prose translation of Books I-IV of Aeneid (1541).