Judith Gautier

Judith Gautier
Born	25 August 1845 Paris, France
Died	26 December 1917(1917-12-26) (aged 72) France
Occupation	Poet, novelist
Nationality	French
Genre	Poetry, historical literature
Spouse	Catulle Mendès
Partner	Richard Wagner (1876)

Judith Gautier (25 August 1845, Paris – 26 December 1917) was a French poet, translator and historical novelist, the daughter of Théophile Gautier and Ernesta Grisi, sister of the noted singer and ballet dancer Carlotta Grisi.[1]

Judith Gautier, John Singer Sargent, 1885

She was married to Catulle Mendès, but soon separated from him and had a brief affair with the composer Richard Wagner during the late summer of 1876. She collaborated with Pierre Loti, the famous novelist, in writing a play, La fille du ciel (1912; English, The Daughter of Heaven), translated and produced under their personal supervision at the Century Theatre, New York City.[2] She was an Oriental scholar and her works dealt mainly with Chinese and Japanese themes.[1] Her translations were among the earliest to bring Chinese and Japanese poetry to the attention of modern European poets. She was a member of the Académie Goncourt (1910–17).

Works

Mémoires d'un éléphant blanc

• Le livre de jade (Paris, 1867) (extended edition Paris, 1902)
• Le Dragon Impérial (1869)
• L'Usurpateur (1875)
• Isoline et La Fleur-Serpent (1882) (translated by Brian Stableford as Isoline and the Serpent-Flower (2013), ISBN 978-1-61227-152-1)
• La Reine de Bangalore (1887)
• Les Princesses d'Amours (Paris, 1900)
• Le Collier des Jours (Paris, 1902)
• Le Paravent: De Soie et D'Or (Paris, 1904)
• L’Avare Chinois, an adaptation of a Yuan zaju Khan thsian-nou by Zheng Tingyu (Paris, 1908)[3]^:130
• Mémoires d'un Éléphant Blanc (The Memoirs of a White Elephant), illustrations by Alphonse Mucha (children's book)[4]

Further reading

• Knapp, Bettina L. (2004). Judith Gautier: Writer, Orientalist, Musicologist, Feminist. Hamilton.
• Richardson, Joanna (1987). Judith Gautier: A Biography. New York: F. Watts.

References

1. Daniel Coit Gilman, ed. (1902). "Gautier, Judith". New International Encyclopedia, Volume VIII. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 161. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
2. "Loti-Gautier Play at Century Theatre", The New York Times, October 13, 1912.
3. Tian, Min (2018-11-27). The Use of Asian Theatre for Modern Western Theatre: The Displaced Mirror. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-97178-0.
4. Gallica.bnf.fr

External links

• Works by Judith Gautier at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Judith Gautier at the Internet Archive
• Works by Judith Gautier at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)