Education

She was born in 1713 in Paris. A year later her father was convicted of bigamy and abandoned Marie-Jeanne and her mother. As an illegitimate daughter, she was placed in a religious institution and destined for a monastic life. However, as she refused, her mother removed her from the convent at the age of 14. Very little is known about her education.

Career

Through her marriage, Marie-Jeanne de Heurles de Laboras entered a family of renowned artists and intellectuals. She went on stage for the first time in 1734, in the troupe of the Italian Comedy, where she spent her entire career (she retired in 1760). She confessed herself that she was not very good at acting.

In Paris Marie-Jeanne frequented the salon of Baron d'Holbach and that of the Helvétius. There she met the great English philosophers of the time, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, with whom she corresponded, and for whom she had as much admiration as affection. Throughout her career Madame de Riccoboni maintained numerous epistolary correspondences with authors, such as Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, as well as David Hume and the theater celebrity David Garrick.

At the end of the 1750s, Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni retired from the stage to devote herself to literature. She began in 1757 with the Lettres de Fanny Butlerd, then she successively published the Histoire du marquis de Cressy (1758) and the Lettres de Juliette Catesby (1759). Her novels were a great success and she bacame famous. For example, a year after the publication of Juliette Catesby, the novel was translated into English by Frances Brookes. 

In 1761, she wrote a Suite de la vie de Marianne, so well imitated from Marivaux that a clarification had to be published to disabuse the public. A year later she published, what seems to be her greatest success: Histoire d'Ernestine. The lyrical adaption of the novel by Laclos and chevalier de Saint-Georges from 1777 was however a flop. 

Apart from writing original works, Marie-Jeanne was the editor of a periodical, L'Abeille (1761), and an occasional translator. In the same years she translated English theatre plays, Fielding's novel Amalia, and produced (or translated) more historical letters and short stories (Lettres de la comtesse de Sancerre (1767) ; Lettres d’Elizabeth–Sophie de Vallière (1772) ; Lettres de Milord Rivers (1777) ; short stories like Histoire d’Aloïse de Livarot, or l’Histoire de Gertrude et Roger).

Financial Situation

In 1734, Marie-Jeanne married Antoine-François Riccoboni, son of Luigi Riccoboni, famous actor and director of the Italian Comedy. Her mother lived with the couple and Marie-Jeanne looked after her until her death in 1769. It is reported that the marriage was unhappy. 

Marie-Jeanne died in 1792 in poverty, the revolutionary turmoil having removed the royal pension which allowed her to survive. She died in the arms of her friend Thérèse Biancolelli, leaving her the few possessions she had left.