Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (1874–1945)

Lucie Delarue-Mardrus was born in Honfleur, Normandy. She became a prolific poet and novelist and was known in Parisian society in the 1920s. Although she considered herself primarily a poet, she produced more than 70 novels during her career, many of them distinctive for their evocations of the landscape and the people of her native Normandy. Her biographies included figures as diverse as Oscar Wilde, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, and William the Conqueror. She was married to Dr. Joseph Charles, or Jean-Charles (J.C.) Mardrus, a noted physician and translator, from 1900 to 1915, and was also involved in sexual affairs with women throughout her lifetime. In 1902-1903, she wrote a series of love poems to Natalie Clifford Barney, published posthumously in 1957 as Nos secrètes amours (Our Secret Loves). She also depicted Natalie Barney in her 1930 novel L'Ange et les Pervers (The Angel and the Perverts).