Christened as Marie-Barbe, she was born in 1711 in Rouen, France, the eldest daughter of Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, a sculptor and painter, and his second wife Barbe Plantart.[1] Having lost her mother when she was eleven years old, she and her younger sister, Catherine, were subsequently mentored by two wealthy women who enrolled them in a convent school at Ernemont in Rouen. Upon completing their educations, they remained there as teachers from 1725 to 1735. In 1735, instead of taking her vow as a nun, she left the convent school and settled in Metz, France where her father was staying with his third wife.[1]
De Beaumont then obtained a prestigious position as a singing teacher to the children at the Court of the Duke of Lorraine, Stanisław Leszczyński, at Lunéville.
After her time as a teacher in Lunéville, she left France to become a governess in London. During this time, she wrote many original works of fiction and nonfiction. Her first work, the moralistic novel, The Triumph of Truth (Le Triomphe de la vérité), was published in 1748. She published approximately seventy volumes during her literary career. Most famous were the collections titled "Le Magasin des infans", published in 1758, which included her version of "Beauty and the Beast". Following this collection, she published "Le Magasin des adolescents" in 1760, "Instructions pour les jeunes dames" in 1764, and "Les Amèricaines" in 1770.[2] All of these works were written as instructional handbooks for parents and educators of students from childhood through adolescence, mostly for young females. She also wrote for other audiences like boys, artists, and people living in poverty or rural areas.[2] She was one of the first to include folktales as a moralist and educational tool in her writings. Her interest in folktale led to the writing of her abridged version of Beauty and the Beast, originally called, La Belle et la Bête, adapted from Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's original. This version was published in 1757 and is considered the more popular version of the classic tale.[3]
De Beaumont also wrote several novels, such as Lettres de Madame du Montier and Memoires de Madame laBaronne de Batteville, both published in 1756. Then, she published Civan, roide Bungo, histoire japonnoise ou tableau de I'education d'un prince all in 1758. Lastly, The New Clarissa: A True History was published in 1768 and Lettres d'Emerance a Lucie in 1774. The New Clarissa: A True History was a novel she wrote as a reply to the original novel Clarissa: Or The History Of A Young Lady by Samuel Richardson. In her version, the lead female character maintained more control over her life and individual freedom.[2]
She published the magazine Le Nouveau Magasin français, ou Bibliothèque instructive et amusante between 1750 and 1752, and contributed articles to the British newspaper The Spectator during her years in London. After a successful publishing career in England, she left the country in 1763 and returned to France. She lived first in Savoy, near the city of Annecy, then moved to Avallon near Dijon in 1774 (see her personal letter #21 dated 22 December 1774 to Thomas Tyrrell) until her death in 1780.
