Jacques Guérin Collection of Violette Leduc Materials, 1945-1971

Guérin, Jacques, 1902-2000

Jacques Guérin was a French perfume magnate who met Violette Leduc through Jean Genet in 1947. Guérin supported Leduc's literary career by helping her financially, publishing her first novels and buying some of her manuscripts.

Leduc, Violette (1907-1972)

Violette Leduc was a French author known for her contributions to feminist and lesbian literature during the post-World War II era. She was born in 1907 in Arras, Pas de Calais, France. Her mother, Berthe Leduc, was employed as a servant by the wealthy Protestant family of her father, André Debaralle, who refused to acknowledge Violette as his daughter. Following her mother's marriage to another man, Leduc attended boarding school but was expelled after facing discrimination based on her romantic relationships with other women. She moved to Paris in 1925 and attended the Lycée Racine briefly before dropping out to work for Plon publishing company. During this period, she had long-term overlapping relationships with Denise Hertgès, her partner of nine years and former teacher, and Jacques Mercier, whom she briefly married. Leduc's influential friendship with writer Maurice Sachs began in 1938, and she moved with him in 1942 to Normandy, where she worked as a black market trader and began to write seriously during World War II. In 1945, she met Simone de Beauvoir, who became an important literary mentor and friend who supported Leduc's writing by editing her work, helping her find a publisher, and introducing her to others in her literary circle, including Jean Genet. Éditions Gallimard published Leduc's first novel, L'Asphyxie, in 1946, though they censored part of her novel Ravages (1955), which was later published as Thérèse et Isabelle (1966). She remains best known for La Bâtarde (1964), a formally inventive autobiography that became a bestseller and object of fascination in the press based on its erotic content and discussion of topics that were then seen as culturally taboo, such as lesbian relationships, abortion, and children born outside of marriage. Leduc continued to publish fiction and autobiographical works until shortly before her death from cancer in 1972.