ALCOFORADO, MARIANNA (1640-1723), writer of the Letters of a Portuguese Nun, was the daughter of a landed proprietor in Alemtejo. She made her profession as a Franciscan nun at 16 or earlier, without any real vocation, and lived a routine life in the convent of the Concepcion at Beja until her 25th year, when she met Noel Bouton, afterwards marquis de Chamilly, and marshal of France. During the years 1665-67 Chamilly spent much of his time in and about Beja, and probably became ac quainted with the Alcoforado family through Marianna's brother, who was a soldier. Custom then permitted those in religious orders to receive and entertain visitors, and Chamilly began an intrigue with Marianna which caused a scandal. To avoid the consequences Chamilly deserted Marianna, and withdrew clan destinely to France. The letters to her lover were written between Dec. 1667 and June 1668, and describe the successive stages of faith, doubt and despair through which she passed. These five short letters written by Marianna to "expostulate her desertion" have become a classic. There are signs in the fifth letter that Marianna had begun to conquer her passion, and after a life of rigid penance, accompanied by much suffering, she died at the age of 83. The letters came into the possession of the comte de Guilleragues; director of the Gazette de France, who turned them into French, and they were published anonymously in Paris in Jan. 1669. In 1810 Boissonade discovered Marianna's name written in a copy of the first edition by a contemporary hand, and the veracity of this ascription has been placed beyond doubt by the investigations of Luciano Cordeiro, who found a tradition in Beja connecting the French captain and the Portuguese nun. The foreign bibliography of the Letters, containing almost ioo numbers, will be found in Cordeiro's admirable study, Soror Marianna, A Friera Portugueza, 2nd ed. (Lisbon, 1891). Besides the French editions, versions exist in Dutch, Danish, Italian and German; and the English bibliography is given by Edgar Prestage in his translation The Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Marianna Alcoforado), 3rd ed. (1903). The French text of the editio princeps was printed in the ist ed. (1893) of this book. Edmund Gosse in the Fortnightly Review, vol. xlix. (old series) p. 506, shows the considerable influence exercised by the Letters on the sentimental literature of France and England.