Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon

Early on he composed various light works, including plays for the Italian Theatre in Paris, and published a short tale called Le Sylphe in 1730.

The publication of Tanzaï et Néadarné, histoire japonaise (1734), which contained thinly veiled attacks on the Papal bull Unigenitus, the cardinal de Rohan and others, landed him briefly in the prison at Vincennes.

Publication of Le Sopha, conte moral, an erotic political satire, in 1742 forced him into exile from Paris for several months.

[2] Around 1744 he entered into a romantic liaison with Lady Henrietta Maria Stafford, daughter of a Jacobite chamberlain, and they were married in 1748.

Inheriting nothing from Henriette, he was forced to sell his large library in 1757 and eventually found steady income as a royal censor (like his father) in 1759.