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“Die Zukünftige Ehefrau” And “Alte Jungfer” In Fanny Lewald’S First Fiction And Autobiography, Judith E. Hector

Masters Theses

Celebrations two hundred years after her birth acknowledge Fanny Lewald (1811-1889), a prolific writer, as an early spokesperson for the emancipation of women from restricted social roles. Her autobiography, Meine Lebensgeschichte, published in 1861-62 when she was 50 years old, describes the first 30 years of her life. In it, she details growing up female in a middle-class home in Königsberg and how she was prepared to assume narrowly defined roles of wife, mother, and household manager (Gattin, Mutter, Hausfrau). Marriage in late 18^th and early 19^th century Germany was touted by Joachim Heinrich Campe and others …