Dictionary.net

A French novelist, poet, and miscellaneous writer, daughter of Theophile Gautier and Carlotta Grisi the famous Italian singer; born in Paris, 1850. She married Catulle Mendes, but was divorced. When quite young she learned Chinese from a mandarin, a guest of her father, and has ever since evinced great interest in the Oriental languages and literature. Her first work, under the name "Judith Walther", was "The Book of Jade" (1867), a collection of prose and verse translated from the Chinese; it was followed by "The Imperial Dragon" (1869), a Chinese romance, signed "Judith Mendes"; "The Usurper", a Japanese romance, crowned by the French Academy in 1875; "Lucienne" (1877); "The Cruelties of Love" (1878); "Isoline" (1881); "Poems of the Dragon Fly" (1884), adapted from the Japanese; "Potiphar's Wife" (1884), a Persian romance; "The Merchant of Smiles" (1888), a drama adapted from the Chinese; "The Marriage of Fingal" (1888), a lyric poem; "The Contemporaneous" (1901).