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Queer Trivia
She was a British poet.
She was born on 11 June 1877 in London, England, to a British farmer who had gained wealth through property investments and an American mother. She studied at Belsize College in Hampstead, London, where she earned a silver medal from the Alliance française in 1883 for her excellence in French.
While she was studying in Paris, her father passed away in 1886. Following his death, she returned to London to claim the inheritance he had left her. Allegedly, her mother tried to have her declared legally insane in an effort to seize the inheritance for herself. The attempt was unsuccessful, and she was removed from her mother's custody, becoming a ward of the court until she reached adulthood. In 1899, after turning 21, she returned to France with her inheritance.
She was a cultured and well-traveled woman, particularly remarkable for her time. She spent winters in Egypt, journeyed to China, and explored much of the Middle East, along with extensive travels throughout Europe and America.
A prominent lesbian writer in Paris during the Belle Époque, she is widely regarded as one of the first significant lesbian poets of the twentieth century. Her work has recently attracted renewed interest amid a broader revival of Sapphic literature.
Many of her poems are deeply autobiographical, often exploring Baudelairian themes of intense romanticism and profound melancholy. In addition to poetry, she authored several prose works, including L'Être Double—inspired by Coleridge's Christabel—and an unfinished biography of Anne Boleyn, which was published after her death. Her life and legacy have also been the focus of multiple biographies, most notably by Jean-Paul Goujon, André Germain, and Yves-Gérard Le Dantec.
She wrote solely in French.
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