Bernard, Catherine (1662–1712)
Bernard, Catherine (1662–1712)
French novelist. Born in 1662 in Rouen, France; died in 1712 in Paris; never married; no children.
A well-educated, probably wealthy woman, Catherine Bernard moved to Paris at age 17. She made her way into the elite of Parisian society, where her imaginative stories found a receptive, intellectual audience. Bernard supported herself well through her writing, probably from commissions from well-to-do literary patrons. She never married but dedicated herself to producing plays, novels, short stories, and fairy tales, a genre much in vogue at the time. All of her works centered on the theme of love, both happy and tragic. Among her more popular works were The Misfortunes of Love (1687) and Ines of Cordoba (1696). Although her works were often realistic in their portrayal of love relationships in her society, Bernard sometimes interwove her fairy tales into a novel's central plot. Catherine Bernard died about age 50.
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