Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède (1609 or 1610 – 1663) was a French novelist and dramatist. He was born at the Château of Tolgou in Salignac-Eyvigues (Dordogne). After studying at Toulouse, he came to Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650 gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household. He died in 1663 in consequence of a kick from his horse.
La Calprenède wrote several long heroic romances that were later ridiculed by Boileau, and most of them were also referenced in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote.[1][2][3] They are: Cassandre (5 vols., 1642–1650); Cléopâtre (1648); Faramond (1661); and Les Nouvelles, ou les Divertissements de la princesse Alcidiane (1661) published under his wife's name, but generally attributed to him.
