Claire de Duras

Claire, Duchess of Duras (née de Kersaint; 1777–1828) was a French writer best known for her 1823 novel called Ourika, which examines issues of racial and sexual equality, and which inspired the 1969 John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. Biography Claire de Duras left her native France for London during the French Revolution in 1789, and returned to France in 1808 as the Duchess of Duras. She maintained a famous literary salon in post-Revolutionary Paris and was the close friend of Chateaubriand, who she had met while in exile in London, and who helped her to publish her books. Ourika was published anonymously in 1823, one of five novels Claire de Duras had written during the previous year; only two of them were published during her lifetime. The three novellas that she did publish were only done so in order to prevent any possible plagiarism.