CRAVEN, PAULINE-MARIE. - French writer, b. in London on 12 Apr. 1808, from the noble family of La Ferronays, d. in Paris on 1 Apr. 1891. She converted her husband Augusto C., an English diplomat, to Catholicism and visited Italy several times.
In 1866 she published the moving and elegant *Récit d'une soeur*, a diary of her brother’s wife, who deeply loved her sick husband and mourned his death after a brief marriage. The two-volume work, awarded by the French Academy, is entirely imbued with Christian spirit and contains mystical accents worthy of a deeply religious soul: *«Mon Dieu! Votre nom est le premier que je veux écrire en commençant ces pages. Je désire qu'elles Vous fassent aimer...»*. She later wrote the novels: *Anne Séverin* (1868), *Eliane*, 2 vols., *Fleurage* (1871), awarded by the French Academy, *Le mot de l'énigme* (1874), *Le Valbrian* (1884), as well as valuable essays such as *Adélaïde Capece Minutolo* (1869), *La Marquise de Mun* (1877), *La jeunesse de Fanny Kemble* (1880), *Lady Giorgiana Fullerton, sa vie et ses oeuvres* (1888), *Le Comte de Montalembert*, *Le père Damiani*; she also authored ascetic works, such as *Une année de méditations* and *Le travail d'une âme*, and travel memoirs like *Rémiiscentes: souvenirs d'Angleterre et d'Italie*, republished in 1912. Some of these works, all marked by profound religious sentiment and distinguished in both form and content, widely read and sought after, have been translated into Italian.