Paul and Virginie is the title of a novel written by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and first published in 1788.
The novel: a very popular 18-century classic of French literature is recognized as perhaps Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s finest work although it criticizes the social class divisions found in eighteenth-century French society.
The story is set on Isle de France and relates about the relationship between the two protagonists; Paul and Virginie, both born from single mothers who have brought them up as brother and sister since birth but who fall in love in their adolescence.
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a French writer born in 1737. He arrived on Isle de France in 1768 and stayed for three years during which he served as an engineer and studied plants. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre based part of the novel on a shipwreck near the island, the St. Géran in 1744.
On his return to France in 1771, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre became friendly with and a pupil of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Together they studied the plants in and around Paris.
In 1773 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre published Voyage à l’Île de France, the Études de la nature in 1784 and his masterpiece, Paul et Virginie in 1788
In 1795 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was elected to the Institut de France and in 1797 he became Director of Jardin des plantes in Paris.
In 1803 Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, was elected a member of the Académie française. He passed away on 21 January 1814 in Éragny, France