Author: Legouvé, Gabriel Marie Jean Baptiste.
Biography:
LEGOUVE, Gabriel Marie Jean Baptiste (1764-1812: NBG)
As a foreign-language author, Legouvé requires only a brief headnote. His translator, Amelia Bristow, has her own entry (q.v.). He was born in Paris on 23 June 1764, the son of a successful lawyer with literary aspirations. On the death of his father in 1782, he was left independently wealthy and was able to pursue his own literary interests. Of several plays that were successful both on the stage and on the page, the best are thought to have been La Mort d’Abel (1793), Epicharus et Néron (1794), and La Mort d Henri IV (1806). His most successful poems, all published between 1798 and 1800, are those translated by Bristow. Legouvé was elected to the Académie Française in 1803 and later gave lectures on poetry at the Collège de France. From 1807 to 1810 he was a proprietor and editor of the Mercure de France. He married Adèle Elisabeth Sauvan (1775-1809) in Paris on 4 Feb. 1803; they had an only son, Ernest (1807-1903), who also became a writer. He died at Paris on 30 Aug. 1812. An edition of his collected works appeared in 1826. (NBG 30, cols 408-11; ancestry.com 29 Dec. 2023; OUCH 24 Oct. 1812)
Other Names:
- G. M. J. B. Legouve