author
vicomte de Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues
1628–1685
Best known as the writer most modern scholars credit with the famous Portuguese Letters, he moved through the worlds of court politics, journalism, and diplomacy in 17th-century France. His small surviving body of work left a surprisingly long literary shadow.
2 Audiobooks
The Letters of a Portuguese Nun
by vicomte de Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues
Lettres portugaises Publiées sur l'édition originale avec une notice préliminaire par Alexandre Piedagnel
by vicomte de Gabriel Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues
About the author
Born in Bordeaux in 1628, Guilleragues was a French writer, journalist, and diplomat who was educated at the Collège de Navarre and later studied law in Paris. He spent time close to political and literary circles, served in royal administration, and also directed the Gazette de France, placing him at the center of public life under Louis XIV.
He is remembered above all for Lettres portugaises (Portuguese Letters), published anonymously in 1669. Though the book was long taken to be real letters from a Portuguese nun, most modern reference works attribute it to Guilleragues, praising its emotional force and its importance in the history of epistolary fiction.
Later in life, he turned increasingly toward diplomacy and was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman court. He died in Constantinople in 1685, leaving behind a reputation built less on a large catalog of books than on one brief, haunting work that continued to fascinate readers for centuries.