Louise Cavelier Levesque

Louise Levesque, neé Cavelier, was born in Rouen on 23 November, 1703. Her father was an attorney for the Parlement of Normandy. Her tales “The Prince of Aquamarines” and “The Invisible Prince” were published in 1722 (and were reprinted a couple of decades later). She married in 1723 and moved to Paris, where she wrote and was published in a variety of genres: poetry, opera, plays, tales, and novels. She died in Paris on 18 May, 1745.

Jacques Barchilon, in his pioneering study of the French literary fairytale (Le Conte Merveilleux Français de 1690 à 1790), praised Levesque for her style, imagination, and penetrating psychology. He was struck by her use of horrific elements in her fairytales, reminding him of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a century later. “The Invisible Prince,” in a much-abridged translation, was included in Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book (1894), but “The Prince of the Aquamarines” has not appeared before in English.