ABSTRACT
Almost nothing is known of the life of Catherine Durand. Her date of birth is unknown, but it was probably in the 1670s; for her date of death, scholars have conjectured 1712 or 1736, based on inconsistent reports of her recent demise in the prefaces to works published shortly after those dates. She marO ried a man named Bedacier, but published all her works under her maiden name. The only certain date is 1701, when she won the poetry prize of the Academie Fran^aise. Between 1699 and 1715 she published a number of novels and semihistorical works. Her set of ten dramatic proverbs, published in 1699 as an appendix to the novel Voyage de campagne by her friend the Comtesse de Murat, marked the first time that examples of this popular salon entertainment appeared in print. A posthumous collection of her works also includes short poems, brief dialogues, and an opera libretto.
