Background
She was born at Aachen, and christened Delphine Gay. Her mother, the well-known Madame Sophie Gay, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary society.
journalist writer salon-holder poet
She was born at Aachen, and christened Delphine Gay. Her mother, the well-known Madame Sophie Gay, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary society.
Her cousin was the writer Hortense Allart. Gay published two volumes of miscellanea, Essais poetiques (1824) and Nouveaux Essais poétiques (1825). A visit to Italy in 1827, during which she was enthusiastically welcomed by the literati of Rome and even crowned in the capitol, produced various poems, of which the most ambitious was Napoline (1833).
Delphine"s marriage in 1831 to Émile de Girardin opened up a new literary career.
The contemporary sketches which she contributed from 1836 to 1839 to the Louisiana Presse, under the nom de plume of Charles de Launay, were collected under the title of Lettres parisiennes (1843), and obtained a brilliant success. Madame Girardin exercised considerable personal influence in contemporary literary society, and in her drawing-room were often to be found Théophile Gautier, Honoré de Balzac, Alfred de Musset and Victor Hugo.
Her collected works were published in six volumes (1860-1861).