Women letter writers in early modern Europe created lengthy correspondences, where they expressed their intellect and their creativity; in the process, they also left a rich historical legacy.
Over time, a large number of women's correspondences have been made the subject of publications. Some among them ignored the literary value of these missives that were sometimes circulated by their recipients. Some correspondences were, on the other hand, strictly private and their literary value—and historic value, as well—was not revealed until the rediscovery of these letters, perhaps long after the death of their authors, as in the case of Élisabeth Bégon, whose correspondence was not discovered until 1932 in the archives of the French Ministry of the Navy.
It is usually agreed that what makes these letters distinctive emanates from their spontaneity. Marie de Sévigné was the incarnation of this quality, to the point of becoming considered by many as the archetype of the woman letter writer, and an altogether literary author, even among her contemporaries, such as Suzanne Curchod:
In 1669, the famous Letters of a Portuguese Nun appeared, presented as a translation of five letters sent by a Portuguese nun to a French officer. For a long time, these letters were accepted as authentic letters written by Mariana Alcoforado, before being definitively shown by a modern critic to be a work of literary fiction, attributed to Gabriel de Guilleragues.
Some women who wrote letters did not lead remarkable lives. For instance Nellie Weeton was born in Lancashire and she was poorly treated by her brother and husband. She copied all the letters to her brother into journals and because some of these are extant they supply an indight into life in her time.
The frontier between reality and fiction becomes blurry between literature and correspondence, above all when novelists turned this writing technique into a literary device that would become the epistolary novel, a genre that reached its peak during the Enlightenment when writers tried to persuade readers that between their hands was a real correspondence, which is what Jean-Jacques Rousseau more or less achieved with Julie, or the New Heloise.
Some famous women letter writers
Juliette Adam
Jeanne d'Albret
Sophie Arnould
Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine
Louisa Dow Benton
Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon
Catherine de Bourbon
Adélaïde de la Briche
Cécile Bruyère
Marie-Angélique de Coulanges
Christine de Pisan
Zulma Carraud
Marquise de Caylus
Isabelle de Charrière
Anastasie de Circourt
Mary Clarke
Sophie Cottin
Hélisenne de Crenne
Suzanne Curchod
Madeleine Des Roches
Catherine Des Roches
Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand
Louise d'Épinay
Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette
Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin
Françoise de Graffigny
Marie-Madeleine Hachard
Anne-Catherine Helvétius
Maria Theresa
Sophie d'Houdetot
Alix de Lamartine
Ninon de Lenclos
Amélie Lenormant
Julie de Lespinasse
Blandine Liszt
Marie Anne de Mailly
Françoise de Maintenon
Sophie de Maraise
Marguerite de Navarre
Mary Montagu
Matilda of Flanders
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Mothe-Guyon
Juliette Récamier
Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni
Manon Roland
Gabrielle Roy
Madeleine de Sablé
Madame de Saint-Huberty
George Sand
Marie de Sévigné
Marguerite de Launay, baronne de Staal
Germaine de Staël
Sophie Swetchine
Claudine Guérin de Tencin
Marie-Anne de La Trémoille
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Jane Vigor
Sophie Volland
Nellie Weeton (1776–1849)