author
Eugénie Foa
d. 1853
A pioneering French writer from a Sephardic Jewish family in Bordeaux, she built a literary career in Paris and became especially known for fiction and historical tales for younger readers. Writing under names including Maria Fitzclarence, she helped open space for Jewish women in 19th-century French literary life.
1 Audiobook
The Boy Life of Napoleon, Afterwards Emperor of the French
by Eugénie Foa
About the author
Born Esther-Eugénie Rodrigues-Henriques in Bordeaux, Eugénie Foa came from the city’s Portuguese-Jewish community. Sources agree that she later lived in Paris and wrote professionally in French, sometimes using the pen name Maria Fitzclarence.
She published novels, periodical pieces, and stories for children, and she is often remembered for historical tales that imagined the youth of well-known figures from French history. Modern reference sources also note her importance as one of the earliest Jewish women in France to support herself through writing.
There is some variation in reference works about her exact birth and death years, but the date you provided—d. 1853—appears in older Jewish reference sources, while other major catalogs list 1796–1852. When details conflict like this, it is safest to say that she was an active and notable French author of the first half of the 19th century.