Sophie Cottin''' (22 March 1770 – 25 August 1807) was a French writer and novelist whose works became popular during the 19th century and were translated into several languages. Born in Paris, she later became known for her sentimental novels, which often explored themes of love, passion, virtue, suffering, and religious feeling. Her writing has been associated with pre-Romanticism.
Cottin published several successful novels, including Claire d'Albe (1799), Malvina (1801), Amélie Mansfield (1803), Mathilde (1805), and Élisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie (1806). Her novels achieved considerable popularity beyond France, contributing to her reputation as an important French novelist of the period. Élisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie, in particular, became one of her best-known works.
Following the death of her husband, Cottin devoted herself increasingly to literature. She died on 25 August 1807 at the age of 37. A collection of her works was subsequently published in several volumes during the 19th century, helping to preserve and circulate her writings.
Biography Marie Sophie Ristaud (sometimes spelt Risteau) was born in March 1770 at Tonneins. She was not yet twenty when she married her first husband, Jean-Paul-Marie Cottin, a banker. She wrote several romantic and historical novels including Elizabeth; or, the Exiles of Siberia (Elisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie 1806), a "wildly romantic but irreproachably moral tale", according to Nuttall's Encyclopaedia. She also published Claire d'Albe (1799), Malvina (1801), Amélie de Mansfield (1803), Mathilde (1805), set in the crusades, and a prose-poem, La Prise de Jéricho. Her writing became more important to her after her first husband died when she was in her early twenties. She went to live with a cousin and her three children at Champlan (Seine-et-Oise) but died at the age of 37 in Paris on 25 August 1807.
List of works Claire d'Albe (1799) Malvina (1800) Amélie Mansfield (1802) English translation : Amelia Mansfield : a novel (1809)Madame Cottin, Amelia Mansfield : a novel, London : Printed for Henry Colburn ..., 1809, 3 vol. Mathilde (1805) Élisabeth ou Les exilés de Sibérie (1806)
References
Bibliography
Silvia Lorusso, Le Charme sans la beauté, vie de Sophie Cottin, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2018. ISBN 978-2-406-08007-7 Silvia Lorusso, Comment s’affranchir de la passion. Le pouvoir de la religion dans les derniers romans de Sophie Cottin, in F. Bercegol et M. Gardini (dir.), Littérature et religion, in « Cahiers de littérature française », n. 21, 2022, p. 29-40. ISSN 1971-4882 ; ISBN 9-782406-144526 Silvia Lorusso, Sophie Cottin et la religion, in « Orages », n. 20, 2022, p. 171-181. ISSN 1635-5202 Silvia Lorusso, Madame Cottin face à Madame de Staël, in F. Bercegol et C. Klettke (dir.), Les femmes en mouvement – L’univers sentimental et intellectuel des romancières du début du XIXe siècle, Berlin, Frank & Timme, 2017, p. 73-87. ISBN 978-3-7329-0322-1 Silvia Lorusso, Sophie Cottin et « le triste honneur de former une nouvelle école de romanciers », in F. Bercegol, S. Genand et F. Lotterie (dir.), Une « période sans nom ». Les années 1780-1820 et la fabrique de l’histoire littéraire, Classiques Garnier, Paris 2016, p. 205-222. ISBN 978-2-406-05998-1 Silvia Lorusso, Lettre inédite de Madame Cottin sur la loi du divorce, in « Revue italienne d’études françaises », [Online], n. 1, 2011. ISSN 2240-7456
External links
Introduction to Amélie Mansfield Cottin's life and works (in French'')