Sophie Cottin (1) (1770–1807)

Sophie Ristaud (or Risteau) was born at Tonneins in southwestern France. By the age of 20, she was married to her first husband, Jean-Paul-Marie Cottin, a banker. She wrote several popular romantic and historical novels including Elisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie (Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia, 1806), Claire d'Albe (1799), Malvina (1801), Amélie de Mansfield (1803), and Mathilde ou Mémoires tirés de l'histoire des croisades (Mathilde or Memories of the History of the Crusades, 1805). She also wrote a prose-poem, La Prise de Jéricho. She died at the age of 37 in Paris in 1807.