Born: 20 October 1740, Netherlands
Died: 27 December 1805
Country most active: Netherlands, Switzerland
Also known as: Isabelle Agneta Elisabeth Charriere, Belle van Zuylen, Zelide or Zélide, Isabella or Isabelle van Tuyll, Abbe de la Tour, Isabelle Agnès Elisabeth van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen
Although Dutch-Swiss Enlightenment writer Isabelle de Charrière is best known for her letters and novels, her body of work also included pamphlets, plays and poems as well as musical compositions. Her commentary on society and politics, particularly during the period of the French Revolution, provides an insight into 1700s European history, as well as her personal views on the nobility, women’s education and religious doubts.
Born into wealth and nobility, de Charrière also had the benefit of liberal-minded parents who allowed her to study subjects like mathematics, physics and languages including Latin, Italian, German and English despite her gender. Her privilege also afforded her the freedom to travel extensively, to wait to marry until her 30s, and then to choose her brother’s tutor as her husband. This wealth, however, relied largely on investments in companies like the Dutch West India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company and the South Sea Company, that depended on overseas slavery to generate their profits. Upon her parents’ deaths, de Charrière inherited much of these investments. Although she did sell 70% of her colonial investments within five years of inheriting them, she would continue to profit from the enslavement of human beings.
As a writer, she flourished in her 40s. Though her first novel – a satire mocking the nobility – had been published anonymously in 1763, her parents withdrew it from sale when her identity was uncovered. More than two decades later, she published two epistolary novels in 1784, and her first political pamphlets in 1788, followed by pamphlets on the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As a composer, she wrote minuets, sonatas and other works that were mostly performed privately for her salon. The only publicly staged production of her work was an adaptation of her novel Le noble performed at The Hague’s Fransche Comedie theater in 1769.