18th-century French Literature - The Birth of The Autobiography in The 18th Century

The Birth of The Autobiography in The 18th Century

Literary stories of people's lives were popular throughout the 18th century, with such popular books as la Vie de mon père (Eng: The Life of My Father) (1779) and Monsieur Nicolas (1794) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif, but the success of the century was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who founded the genre of the modern autobiography with les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (The dreams of a solitary walker) in 1776, and Les Confessions in 1782, which became the models for all novels of self-discovery.

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