author
Pigault-Lebrun
1753–1835
Known for lively, irreverent fiction and a famously turbulent life, this French writer helped shape a popular style of comic, fast-moving storytelling at the turn of the 19th century. His books were widely read in their day, even as critics often argued over their taste and morals.
1 Audiobook
L'amour et la raison
by Pigault-Lebrun
About the author
Born in Calais on April 8, 1753, Pigault-Lebrun was the pen name of Charles-Antoine-Guillaume Pigault de l'Espinoy, a French novelist and playwright. Accounts of his early life describe it as stormy, and that restless energy seems to have carried into his writing, which became known for its wit, movement, and appetite for scandal.
He wrote numerous plays and novels, and is especially remembered as a popular entertainer rather than a polished stylist. His fiction was often comic, adventurous, and deliberately broad, which won him many readers while also bringing criticism from those who found his work morally loose or artistically uneven.
Even so, Pigault-Lebrun holds a real place in literary history. Writing in the years around the French Revolution and after, he helped define a strain of accessible popular fiction that influenced later novelists and gave readers stories full of energy, mischief, and sharp social feeling.