Fénelon. Télémaque, 1699.
18th Century
Cabinet des Fées, containing not only the authors or translators mentioned under the head of the preceding century, but a series of later writings down to the eve of the Revolution. Gueulette's adaptations and imitations ranged from the Soirées Bretonnes, published in 1712 during Hamilton's lifetime, to the Thousand and One Hours, 1733, the other collections mentioned in the text coming between. It may be worth mentioning that, being an industrious editor as well as tale-teller and playwright, he reprinted Le Petit Jehan de Saintré in 1724 and Rabelais in 1732. Caylus's tales seem to have been scattered over the middle third of the century from about 1730 to his death in 1765. Cazotte's Diable Amoureux (not in the Cabinet) is of 1772—he had written very inferior things of the tale kind full thirty years earlier. Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont (who was long an actual governess in England) wrote her numerous "books for the young" for the most part between 1757 (Le Magazin des Enfants) and 1774 (Contes Moraux).
Lesage. Le Diable Boiteux, 1707; Gil Blas de Santillane, 1715-35.
Marivaux. Les Effets Surprenants, 1713-14; Marianne, 1731-36; Le Paysan Parvenu, 1735.
Prévost. Mémoires d'un Homme de Qualité, 1728-32, followed by Manon Lescaut, 1733; Cléveland, 1732-39; Le Doyen de Killérine, 1735; Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne, 1741.
(It may not be impertinent to draw attention to the fact that Prévost, like Defoe—though not quite to the same extent, and in the middle, not towards the end of his career—concentrated the novel-part of an enormous polygraphic production upon a few years.)
Crébillon fils. Lettres de la Marquise, 1732; Tanzaï et Néadarné, 1734; Les Égarements, 1736; Le Sopha, 1745; La Nuit et le Moment, 1755; Le Hasard au Coin du Feu, 1763; Ah! Quel Conte! 1764.
Voltaire's Tales were distributed over a large part of his long and insatiably busy life; but none of his best are very early. Zadig is of 1747; Micromégas of 1752; Candide of 1759; L'Ingénu and La Princesse de Babylone of 1767 and 1768 respectively.
Rousseau. La Nouvelle Héloïse, 1760; Émile, 1762.