Therese Bentzon

Vocation

French journalist, essayist, and novelist, for many years on the staff of the Revue des Deux Mondes. She traveled widely in the United States, and wrote of American literature and social conditions. She married in 1856 to a Louis Blanc, but three years later, after having a son, her husband left her. It isn't clear if he died or simple if they divorced. After working for different newspapers and magazines, she was introduced by her grandfather, the Count Antoine Cartier D'Aure to George Sand, and spent a lot of time at Sand's house, in Nohant, helping her with her recording of events happening here. Sand mentions her in her journal. Her grandfather and Sand shared an interest for horses, and he had helped the writer buy some pure-breed race horses. As a thank she agreed to read a short novel written by his granddaughter, and to present her to the then editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes, François Buloz. This was the real beginning of her writing career. As an alias, she took her mother's maiden name, and generally was known as "Théodore Bentzon" a masculine penname that was voluntarily identifying her as a man, for a woman writing was not well perceived in the nineteenth century. After Sand insisted, and helped by Victor Cherbuliez, a reluctant Buloz let her in, as a literary critic, in 1872. She stayed in the magazine up until one year before her death. Thanks to her fluent English, she was appointed to the translation and comment of very important American and English authors, and it contributed to build her a solid network in the United States. Her work at the magazine consisted essentially in writing critics pertaining to the Anglo-Saxon, German and Russian world. She also published most of her fictional work through the magazine, while developing her friendship with major literary figures of her time. By the time the magazine's direction changed to Ferdinand Brunetière, she had become a prominent writer at it. She lived the best years of the magazine. In 1893, she was sent by the Revue des Deux Mondes in the US to report on the women's condition there. At her return from the US, she compiled her articles in a book, a travel journal. She visited the US again in 1897 for a shorter amount of time. Her travel journal was a best-seller and was edited again 8 times, in different editions. Her book also accords a great importance on urban America, making a thorough portrayal of it. She died in 1907. Link to Wikipedia biography