Novelist, philosopher, moralist, and feminist, Madeleine de Scudéry was a figure of enormous influence in the development of French literature in the seventeenth century. Her writings immortalized the style of speech cultivated in the salons. She accompanied her analyses of the delicacy of human relations with creative and visionary speculations on the nature of social institutions and practices: marriage, friendship, conversation.

Born on 15 November 1607 in the busy trade city of Le Havre on the Atlantic coast of France, Madeleine de Scudéry was one of five children born to Georges de Scudéry and Madeleine de Martel de Goutimesnil, both from provincial aristocratic families of relatively modest means. In 1613 both parents died, leaving their two surviving children to the care of an uncle in Rouen, the provincial capital where Madeleine was to spend most of her youth. Here she was educated according to standards...