Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (20 June 1786 - 23 July 1859) was a French poet and novelist.

She was born in Dowai. After the French Revolution, her father's business fell apart, so she went with her mother to Guadeloupe looking for financial help from a far relative. Her mother died there from yellow fever, and she went back to France by unknown means. At age 16, she began a career on stage in Douai, and in 1817, she married an actor named Prosper Lanchantin-Valmore.

In 1819, she produced her first book, Élégies et Romances. Later, in 1821, she published the narrative Veillées des Antilles, which includes the novella Sarah, an addition to the genre of slave stories in France.