Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711–1780) was a teacher, and her fairy tales began as teaching material. Beauty and the Beast in the form the world knows comes from a book she wrote for children and for the adults who taught them.

She was born in Rouen, taught singing to the children at the court of the Duke of Lorraine at Lunéville, and then went to London and worked as a governess. Le Magasin des enfants came out of that work in 1756, a collection of conversations, stories and lessons put together mainly for girls.

The story of the merchant’s daughter and the enchanted master of the castle was not hers to begin with. Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve had published it sixteen years earlier, several times longer and tangled with the past lives of both characters. Leprince de Beaumont cut nearly all of it away and kept the centre: a girl, a beast, a rose, and a decision that has to be made before it is too late. It was the shorter version that travelled.