A Fair Penitent

The Fair Penitent is a short story which first appeared in Charles Dickens' magazine, "Household Words," volume 16, number 382, July 18, 1857. Published anonymously, as all contributions to the magazine were, it was attributed definitely to Wilkie Collins by Anne Lohrli in her analysis of the magazine's financial accounts.Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels, who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century, became secretary to the French Academy, and succeeded Voltaire in the office of historiographer of France. Among the papers left by Duclos, two manuscripts were found, which he probably intended to turn to some literary account. The first was a brief Memoir, written by himself, of a Frenchwoman, named Mademoiselle Gautier, who began life as an actress and who ended it as a Carmelite nun. This is the story base on his manuscript.