Rachilde

Rachilde
Born	Marguerite Eymery (1860-02-11)11 February 1860 Dordogne, France
Died	4 April 1953(1953-04-04) (aged 93) Paris, France
Pen name	Rachilde Jean de Chilra
Occupation	novelist and playwright
Literary movement	Symbolist Decadent
Notable works	Monsieur Vénus
Spouse	Alfred Vallette ​ ​ (m. 1889; died 1935)​

Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (11 February 1860 – 4 April 1953). Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a Symbolist author and one of the most prominent women in literature associated with the Decadent movement of fin de siècle France.

A diverse and challenging author, Rachilde's most famous work includes the darkly erotic novels Monsieur Vénus (1884), La Marquise de Sade (1887), and La Jongleuse (1900). She also wrote a 1928 monograph on gender identity, Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe ("Why I am not a Feminist"). Her work was noted for being frank, fantastical, and always with a suggestion of autobiography underlying questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.

She said of herself, "I always acted as an individual, not thinking to found a society or to upset the present one."^[1]