Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (28 November 1685 – 29 December 1755)[1] was a French novelist influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various précieuse writers.[2] Villeneuve is particularly noted for her original story of La Belle et la Bête, which was published in 1740 and is the oldest known variant of the fairy taleBeauty and the Beast.
^Marie Laure Girou Swiderski, "La Belle et la Bête? Madame de Villeneuve, la Méconnue," Femmes savants et femmes d'esprit: Women Intellectuals of the French Eighteenth Century, edited by Roland Bonnel and Catherine Rubinger (New York: Peter Lang, 1997) 100.