Although Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, comtesse d'Aulnoy, did not begin her brief, thirteen-year literary career until the age of thirty-nine or forty, she rapidly became one of the most popular and influential authors of the turn of the eighteenth century. Her literary corpus is extremely diverse--three historical novels, six Spanish novellas, two pseudomemoirs, three devotional meditations, two epistolary novels, three short stories, one contemporary history, and twenty-five fairy tales--and boasts, among other innovations, the first literary fairy tale of the French tradition.

In France, d'Aulnoy's original plots, quick-witted heroines, sensitive heroes, and lively, conversational style attracted the attention of the popular publisher Claude Barbin and afforded d'Aulnoy the protection of King Louis XIV's two daughters, the duchess of Bourbon and the princess of Conti. Most important, however, her innovative talent for fairy tales sparked a vogue of publication in France that lasted from 1690 until 1715--sweeping up prominent...