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
