On this day in 1873 Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) was born outside Paris. Even given her mythologizing, and her intentional blurring of the lines in her autobiographical fiction, Colette's full and sensational life made her one of the most popular writers and personalities in the first half of the twentieth century. She wrote over fifty books, and is credited and blamed with much: having invented the modern teenager (presented in her early Claudine novels); being the first modern woman (based on her intention to live "in the most normal manner I know, which is according to [my] pleasure"); being the first superstar (her self-promotion, her own line of chocolates and cosmetics, her personal gym, her cake-and-eat-it-too lament for privacy); being the first actress to bare her breasts on stage (or not bare them in a jeweled bra, or in man's clothing); being one of the first to write about the faked orgasm; being the first woman to be given, in 1954, a state funeral ... FULL STORY »
