author
Ninon de Lenclos
1620–1705
A vivid figure of 17th-century Paris, she became famous for her wit, independence, and lively salon as much as for the legends that grew around her. Her life and writing helped make her a lasting symbol of free thought and elegant conversation.
2 Audiobooks
Life, letters, and Epicurean philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, the celebrated beauty of the seventeenth century
by Ninon de Lenclos
Lettres de Mmes. de Villars, de Coulanges et de La Fayette, de Ninon de L'Enclos et de Mademoiselle Aïssé accompagnées de notices bibliographiques, de notes explicatives par Louis-Simon Auger
by marquise de Marie Gigault de Bellefonds Villars, C. E. (Charlotte Elisabeth) Aïssé, Marie-Angélique Du Gué Bagnoles Coulanges, Madame de (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne) La Fayette, Ninon de Lenclos
About the author
Born in Paris in 1620, Anne "Ninon" de l'Enclos—also spelled de Lenclos or de Lanclos—was known as a writer, salon hostess, patron of the arts, and one of the most talked-about women of her time. She built a reputation for intelligence, charm, and unusual personal independence in a society that gave women little room to shape their own lives.
Her Paris salon drew writers, nobles, and thinkers, and she became closely associated with libertine and Epicurean ideas. Rather than being remembered only through gossip about her private life, she has also lasted in history as a sharp-minded cultural figure whose conversation, letters, and influence reached well beyond fashionable society.
She died in 1705, but her legend continued to grow in memoirs, biographies, and later histories of French literary life. Today she is often remembered as both a woman of letters and a symbol of wit, skepticism, and self-possession in the age of Louis XIV.