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Pauline Réage ( September 23, 1907 - April 27, 1998) was a French author.Born Anne Desclos in Rochefort-sur-Mer, Charente-Maritime, France to a bilingual family, she began reading in French and English at an early age. After completing her studies at the Sorbonne, she worked as a journalist until 1946 when she joined Gallimard Publishers as the editorial secretary for one of its imprints using the pen name of Dominique Aury.
An avid reader of English and American literature, she either translated or introduced readers in France to such renowned authors as Algernon Charles Swinburne, Evelyn WaughEvelyn Arthur St. John Waugh ( October 28 1903 April 10 1966) was an English satirical novelist, brother of Alec Waugh and father of Auberon Waugh. Born in London, he left Oxford University ( Hertford College) in 1924 with a third-class degree. He taught, Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf ( January 25, 1882 March 28, 1941) was a British author and feminist. Between the world wars, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury group. Life and Work Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in Lon, T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot ( September 26, 1888 January 4, 1965), was a major Modernist Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic. Life and work Eliot was born into a prominent Unitarian Saint Louis, Missouri family; his fifth cousin, Tom Eliot, was C, F. Scott FitzgeraldCarl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald ( September 24, 1896- December 21, 1940), was a Jazz Age novelist. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century. The self-styled spoke and numerous others. She became a highly respected critic and was made a member of the jury for several prominent literary awards.
Her lover and employer, Jean Paulhan , had made the chauvinistic remark to her that no female was capable of writing an erotic novel. To prove him wrong she wrote a graphic, sadomasochistic novel that was published under the pseudonym "Pauline Réage" in June of 1954Events January events January 14 The Hudson Motor Car Company merges with Nash-Kelvinator forming the American Motors Corporation January 14 Marilyn Monroe weds Joe DiMaggio. January 15 Mau Mau leader Waruhiu Itote is captured in Kenya January 20 The Nati. Titled the Histoire d'O (The Story of O), it proved Paulhan wrong and was an enormous, though controversial, commercial success. The book caused much speculation as to the identity of the author. No one suspected that it was a woman let alone the demure, intellectual, and almost prudish, Dominique Aury.
In addition, the book's graphic content sparked so much controversy that the following March the government authorities brought obscenity charges against the publisher and its mysterious author that were thrown out of court in 1959. However, a publicity ban and a restriction on the book's sale to minors was imposed by the judge. Following the lifting of the publicity ban in 1967 she wrote the conclusion to The Story of O under the title Retour à Roissy , again using the pseudonym of Pauline Réage.
In 1975 an interview she did with author and publisher Régine Deforges about erotic books was published and still her authorship of them remained unknown. Finally, forty years after the book was published, in an interview with The New Yorker magazine, Dominique Aury admitted for the first time publicly that she was the author of The Story of O.
Anne Desclos died in Corbeil-Essonnes, Île-de-France.
