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Colette
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Colette Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette sits at a cluttered desk holding eyeglasses, with papers, a telephone, and a potted plant visible beside her. Portrait of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the French writer, with curly hair and a somber expression, wearing a dark garment with a patterned scarf.
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Colette
Colette summary
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
A Study of Poetry
4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul
Famous Poets and Poetic Form
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
Poetry: First Lines
Colette, in full Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, outstanding French writer of the first half of the 20th century.
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Colette
Colette French writer Colette, 1937.

Colette

French writer
Also known as: Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Written by
Kathleen Kuiper
Kathleen Kuiper was Senior Editor, Arts & Culture, Encyclopædia Britannica until 2016. She also edited Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.
Kathleen Kuiper
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

Colette (born Jan. 28, 1873, Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, France—died Aug. 3, 1954, Paris) was an outstanding French writer of the first half of the 20th century whose best novels, largely concerned with the pains and pleasures of love, are remarkable for their command of sensual description. Her greatest strength as a writer is an exact sensory evocation of sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and colours of her world. Colette was reared in a village in Burgundy, where her...

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