WPaul Adam was a French novelist who became an early proponent of Symbolism in France, and one of the founders of the Symbolist review Le Symboliste.
WGuillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian descent.
WLouis Aragon was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review Littérature. He was also a novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.
WMarayat Rollet-Andriane, formerly Marayat Krasaesin or her birthname Marayat Bibidh, known by the pen name Emmanuelle Arsan, was a French novelist of Thai origin, best known for the novel featuring the fictional character Emmanuelle, a woman who sets out on a voyage of sexual self-discovery under varying circumstances. It was later claimed that the real author of the book was her husband, Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane.
WGeorges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, consumerism, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, and poetry, explored such subjects as erotism, mysticism, surrealism, and transgression. His work would prove influential on subsequent schools of philosophy and social theory, including poststructuralism.
WPierre-Jean de Béranger was a prolific French poet and chansonnier (songwriter), who enjoyed great popularity and influence in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity in the decades following his death. He has been described as "the most popular French songwriter of all time" and "the first superstar of French popular music".
WPierre Bourgeade was a French man of letters, playwright, poet, writer, director, journalist, literary critic and photographer. A descendant of Jean Racine, he was also the brother-in-law of the writer Paule Constant.
WNicolas Chorier was a French lawyer, writer, and historian. He is known especially for his historical works on Dauphiné, as well as his erotic dialogue called The School of Women, or The Seven Flirtatious Encounters of Aloisia.
WCharles Collé was a French dramatist and songwriter.
WAnne Cécile Desclos was a French journalist and novelist who wrote under the pseudonyms Dominique Aury and Pauline Réage, and is best known for her erotic novel Histoire d'O.
WRobert Desnos was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.
WDenis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment.
WMarguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu, known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
WPierre-François Hugues, known as 'baron d'Hancarville' was an art historian and historian of ideas.
WPaul Henry de Kock, better known as Henry de Kock, was a 19th-century French playwright, novelist, and chansonnier, famous for his salacious novels.
WCharles-Jacques-Louis-Auguste Rochette de La Morlière, called "Le Chevalier", was an 18th-century French playwright.
WViolette Leduc was a French author.
WJean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, politician, and diplomat.
WPierre Louÿs was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature.
WSylvain Maréchal was a French essayist, poet, philosopher and political theorist, whose views presaged utopian socialism and communism. His views on a future golden age are occasionally described as utopian anarchism. He was editor of the newspaper Révolutions de Paris.
WCatherine Millet is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine Art Press, which focuses on modern art and contemporary art.
WAlfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist. Along with his poetry, he is known for writing the autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle.
WAndré-Robert Andréa de Nerciat was a French novelist, best known for his novel Le Diable au corps.
WAngela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, known professionally as Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of composer Joaquín Nin and Rosa Culmell, a classically trained singer. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an author.
WJoséphin Péladan was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism. He established the Salon de la Rose + Croix for painters, writers, and musicians sharing his artistic ideals, the Symbolists in particular.
WLouis Perceau was a 20th-century French polygraph. He used several pseudonyms including Helpey bibliographe poitevin, Dr. Ludovico Hernandez, Alexandre de Vérineau, Un vieux journaliste, Radeville et Deschamps, marquis Boniface de Richequeue, sometimes jointly with Fernand Fleuret.
WBenjamin Péret was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.
WRachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery. Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a symbolist author and the most prominent woman in literature associated with the Decadent Movement of fin de siècle France.
WNicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif, also known as Rétif or Restif de la Bretonne, was a French novelist. The term retifism for shoe fetishism was named after him.
WAlina Reyes is a French writer, best known for her literary treatment of eroticism.
WChristiane Rochefort was a French feminist writer. She was born into a left-wing working class Parisian family; her father joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Rochefort worked as a journalist and spent fifteen years as a press attaché to the Cannes Film Festival before publishing her first novel, Le Repos du guerrier, in 1958. Like several of her later novels, Le Repos du guerrier was a bestseller; in 1962 it was adapted into a popular film directed by Roger Vadim and starring Brigitte Bardot. Her novels are divided between social realist satires set in present-day France and utopian or dystopian fantasies. She won the Prix Médicis in 1988. Rochefort's novels also have strong sexual elements.
WDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. In his lifetime some of these were published under his own name while others, which de Sade denied having written, appeared anonymously. De Sade is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, suffering, anal sex, crime, and blasphemy against Christianity. He became infamous for his numerous sexual crimes and abuse against young men, women, and children. He claimed to be a proponent of absolute freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion, or law. The words sadism and sadist are derived from his name.
WClaude-Henri de Fusée, abbé de Voisenon was a French playwright and writer.