Marguerite Yourcenar (UK: /ˈjʊərsənɑːr, ˈjʊkənɑːr/,[1][2] US: /ˌjʊərsəˈnɑːr/;[3] French: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit juʁsənaʁ] ⓘ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947.

In 1939, her partner at the time,[7] the literary scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick, invited Yourcenar to the United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they bought a house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island, where they lived for decades.

In this novel, Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world, the Roman emperor Hadrian, who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius, the son and heir of Antoninus Pius, his successor and adoptive son.

[10] Yourcenar's house on Mount Desert Island, Petite Plaisance, is now a museum dedicated to her memory.