Charrière, Isabelle-Agnès-Élizabeth de

▪ Swiss novelist

original name  Isabella Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken , bynames  Belle van Zuylen,  Zélide , and  Abbé de la Tour 

born Oct. 20, 1740, Zuilen, near Utrecht, Neth.

died Dec. 27, 1805, Colombier, Switz.

 Swiss novelist whose work anticipated early 19th-century emancipated ideas.

      She married her brother's Swiss tutor and settled at Colombier near Neuchâtel. Influenced by Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she expressed views critical of aristocratic privilege, moral conventions (Trois Femmes, 1797; “Three Women”), religious orthodoxy, and poverty, though she was opposed to revolutionary radicalism (Lettres trouvées sous la neige, 1794; “Letters Found on the Snow”). Her novels, of which the most important are Caliste, ou lettres écrites de Lausanne (1786; “Caliste, or Letters Written from Lausanne”) and Lettres neuchâteloises (1784; “Letters of Neuchâtel”), abound in philosophical reflection, refined psychological observation, and local colour but lack coherent plots.

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