Gradually she comes to know and fall in love with her husband, and when he falls foul of the regime and is burned at the stake, she uses her wiles to regain her rightful position at Versailles. The marketing department had decided that the books would sell more if they were thought to have been written by a man.Īll of this was far removed from the proto-feminist intentions of Anne Golon, who had been inspired to write by the success of Margaret Mitchell in describing, in Gone with the Wind, history from the viewpoint of a heroine.Īngélique de Sancé de Monteloup is the free-spirited daughter of a provincial nobleman married off (in a nod to the French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast) to an older, hideously scarred aristocrat said to be a sorcerer. Moreover, without consulting the author, the name under which they appeared in English was changed to “Sergeanne Golon”, that being a composite of her name and that of her husband, a well-born Russian exile, who did much of the historical research. The works’ merits were further undermined in English by a swashbuckling approach to their editing which, in one book, stretched as far as the complete excision of an important character.
This was played up by their publishers, who gave them cover art in which embonpoint and negligées featured prominently, and partly explains why second-hand copies often command high prices. In their English translations, the exploits of the ravishing and indeed oft-ravished Angélique, which take place during the reign of Louis XIV, acquired the reputation of being racy historical romances akin to Forever Amber, or even erotica.
Anne Golon, who has died aged 95, was the author of one of the most popular French series of novels of modern times, the adventures of Angélique, Marquise des Anges although largely unknown now to Anglophone readers, except for a stalwart band of devotees, in their heyday during the Sixties the books are said to have sold more than 100 million copies.
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