Charlotte-Adelaïde Dard

author

Charlotte-Adelaïde Dard

1798–1862

Best remembered for a firsthand account tied to the wreck of the Méduse, this French writer turned survival, travel, and family hardship into a vivid autobiographical story. Her work offers a rare personal view of early nineteenth-century life between France and Senegal.

1 Audiobook

Perils and Captivity Comprising The sufferings of the Picard family after the shipwreck of the Medusa, in the year 1816; Narrative of the captivity of M. de Brisson, in the year 1785; Voyage of Madame Godin along the river of the Amazons, in the year 1770.

Perils and Captivity Comprising The sufferings of the Picard family after the shipwreck of the Medusa, in the year 1816; Narrative of the captivity of M. de Brisson, in the year 1785; Voyage of Madame Godin along the river of the Amazons, in the year 1770.

by Charlotte-Adelaïde Dard, Pierre-Raymond de Brisson, Jean Godin des Odonais

About the author

Born in Paris in 1798, Charlotte-Adélaïde Dard was a French writer whose name is closely linked to La Chaumière africaine, published in 1824. The book draws on her own experience after the wreck of the frigate Méduse and follows the ordeal of a French family cast onto the West African coast.

Accounts of her life describe long years in Senegal as well as the difficult struggle to support her family there. She later married Jean Dard, an educator known for his work in Saint-Louis, and her writing stands out for combining adventure, hardship, and close observation of the world around her.

Dard died in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in 1862. Though not widely known today, she remains an intriguing voice from the age of shipwreck narratives and colonial travel writing, especially because her most famous book is rooted in lived experience rather than legend.