Anne Louise Germaine Necker Baronne de Staël-Holstein, the French novelist and essayist, was born in Paris, the daughter of Suzanne Curchot and Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI. In 1786 she married Eric Magnus, baron of Stäel-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to France, from whom she separated in 1797. In the year of her marriage she published her first novel, Sophie, and four years later a tragedy, Jeanne Grey.

Her interest in philosophy began with a study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose fervent admirer she remained throughout her life. She incurred the hostility of Napoleon Bonaparte both by her frank criticism and by her liberalism, and her advocacy of a constitutional monarchy led to her being exiled in 1802. She made her first trip to Germany at this time, a...