Rachilde

Erin Williams Hyman (Cornell University)

Ed. by Tim Unwin, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: David Elwyn Evans (University of St Andrews), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Elisabeth Gerwin (University of Lethbridge), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

Born 11 Feb 1860
Died 4 Apr 1953
Activity 1884-1947

Places

Born in France
Active in France

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Journalist
Memoirist
Playwright / Dramatist
Poet

Resources

Prudish pornographer, gender-bending anti-feminist, anarchist reactionary, “Queen of the Decadents” yet nemesis to the Surrealists, Rachilde was a fin-de-siècle French author who embodied antithetical extremes, and whose life of notoriety spanning nearly a century ended in a death in near obscurity in 1953. Known primarily for novels such as Monsieur Vénus (1884), Madame Adonis (1888), and La Marquise de Sade (1887), whose titles announce the gender switching and sexual theatrics central to her œuvre, she was also a playwright, essayist, biographer, journalist and salonnière, a force behind the influential literary journal Le Mercure de France, which she helped found in 1891 alongside her husband Alfred Valette and other significant Symbolist writers and critics. Responsible for the review of novels for the journal from 1893 to 1925, she was in dialogue and correspondence with writers from...

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2980 words

Citation: Hyman, Erin Williams. "Rachilde". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11777, accessed 09 June 2026.]