Isabelle de Charrière

Born Isabella Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken on 20 October 1740, she grew up in the Netherlands before settling in Colombier, Neuchâtel, where she'd live out the second half of her life. She wrote across forms - novels, letters, pamphlets, plays, even music - and trained her attention on the society and politics unfolding around her. Her work from the years surrounding the French Revolution is now considered especially significant, a record of Enlightenment thought meeting historical rupture. She died on 27 December 1805, known in different places by different names: Madame de Charrière, Belle van Zuylen.