JEANNE LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT was born at Rouen, in 1711, and commenced
her literary career in 1748, by the production of a romance, called
_La Triomphe de la Vérité_; shortly after which she came to England,
and resided in London for a considerable time, occupying herself as
a governess, and in writing works for the instruction as well as the
amusement of youth. That which acquired the most popularity was _Le
Magazin des Enfans_, in which appeared her abridgment of _Beauty and
the Beast_, and her original _Fairy Tales_. She was twice married. Her
first was an unfortunate union, annulled almost immediately afterwards.
Her second marriage took place in England, but to a Frenchman; and in
1762 she returned to France for the benefit of her native air. In 1768,
she purchased a small estate, called Chenavoi, and died in 1780. Her
miscellaneous works amount to seventy volumes; but even _Le Magazin des
Enfans_ is scarcely remembered in the present day, and the four short
fairy tales which terminate this volume are, with the abridgment of
_Beauty and the Beast_, the only effusions by which she is popularly
known in England. The best of them is