Marie Jeanne Riccoboni


Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni, whose maiden name was Laboras de Mézières, was a French actress and novelist.

Early years

She was born in Paris in 1713.

Career

In 1735 she married Antoine François Riccoboni, a comedian and dramatist, from whom she soon separated. She herself was an actress and had moderate success on the stage.
Madame Riccoboni's work is among the most eminent examples of the "sensibility" novel; among the parallels cited in English literature are works by Laurence Sterne and Samuel Richardson. A still nearer parallel may be found in the work of Henry Mackenzie.
She obtained a small pension from the crown, but the Revolution deprived her of it, and she died in Paris on December 7, 1792 in great poverty.

Writer

Apart from authoring the works listed below, Riccoboni was the editor of a periodical, L'Abeille, wrote a novel on the subject of Fielding's Amelia, and supplied in 1765 a continuation of Marivaux's unfinished Marianne. Riccoboni also corresponded with such luminaries as Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, as well as David Hume and the theater celebrity David Garrick.
Some of her better known works are: