Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Short Biography

Colette was the pen name of the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. She is best known, at least in the English-speaking world, for her novel Gigi, which provided the plot for a Lerner & Loewe musical film and stage musical.Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, in the Burgundy Region of France, the daughter of Jules-Joseph Colette and Adèle Eugénie Sidonie Landoy ("Sido"). In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, a famous wit known as "Willy", who was 15 years her senior.Her first books, the Claudine series, were published under the pen name of her husband, "Willy", writer, music critic, "literary charlatan and degenerate". Claudine still has the power to charm; in belle epoque France it was downright shocking, much to Willy`s satisfaction and profit.