Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont was among the first French authors to write fairy tales explicitly intended for children. Although she published more than seventy volumes in her lifetime - anecdotes, tles, essays, fairy tales etc. - she is mostly remembered for her version of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (1756), based on an earlier version by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneueve (1740).

The launch of new French Magazine in 1750 made her one of the first French female magazine editors.