Meet the Fascinating Literary Icon Behind Keira Knightley's New Movie

In 1873, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in Burgundy. She departed from village life for Paris at age 20, marrying the music critic Henry Gauthier-Villars, who was known in the literary world as Willy. Her husband grew interested in the stories of her school days and asked her to write them down. Following his past pattern of deploying ghostwriters, Willy, after making a few changes, sent the stories into an editor under his own name. The stories, which became the Claudine series, grew immensely popular throughout France, even spawning memorabilia like perfumes and school uniforms. When Colette didn't want to write the stories, her husband locked her inside her room until she would write. From 1900 to 1904, she produced four novels for the Claudine series: Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, Claudine Married, and Claudine and Annie. The writer's marriage with Willy ended after 13 years.

After her marriage with Willy disintegrated, Colette became a music hall dancer to support herself while continuing her writing career with articles about politics, fashion, cooking, and drama. Before her second marriage, she had relationships with several women, including Mathilde de Morny, or "Missy," a cross-dressing lesbian entertainer. In 1907, their kiss on stage at the Moulin Rouge caused an uproar, but the liaison wouldn't last.

A few years later, Colette married newspaper editor Henri de Jouvenel, with whom she had a daughter. The marriage allowed her to focus on her writing. It ended in 1924, marked by Jouvenel's infidelities as well as Colette's affair with her stepson. But during this time, the author would write one of her most famous works yet — Chéri, a novel about a courtesan and her much younger lover. Years after Jouvenel, she married Maurice Goudeket, a Jewish jewellery salesman whom she would help hide during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II.