Fanny Tarnow was a German writer. She was born Franziska Christiane Johanna Friederike Tarnow and wrote under the pseudonyms Fanny and F.T..

Life

Fanny Tarnow was the first child of the lawyer and secretary of state in Güstrow, later a Gutsbesitzer or landholder, David Tarnow and his wife Amalie Justine nee Holstein. She grew up in wealthy circles, but was unable to walk after a fall when she was four. After her father lost his property, the family moved to Neu-Buckow and Fanny became a governess, first at Rügen for four years then at Rohlstorff. In 1805 she began publishing her journals anonymously and made contact with cultural figures including Johann Friedrich Rochlitz

Johann Friedrich Rochlitz

Johann Friedrich Rochlitz was a German playwright, musicologist and art and music critic. His most notable work is his autobiographical account Tage der Gefahr about the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 - in Kunst und Altertum, Goethe called it "one of the most wondrous productions ever to have been...

, Julius Eduard Hitzig

Julius Eduard Hitzig

Julius Eduard Hitzig was a German author and civil servant.Born into the wealthy and influential Jewish Itzig family, he was between 1799 and 1806 a Prussian civil servant, became Criminal Counsel at the Berlin Supreme Court in 1815 and its director in 1825...

, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué was a German writer of the romantic style.-Biography:He was born at Brandenburg an der Havel, of a family of French Huguenot origin, as evidenced in his family name...

, Rosa Maria Assing

Rosa Maria Assing

Rosa Maria Antonetta Paulina Assing nee Varnhagen, was a German lyric poet, prose-writer, educator, translator and silhouette artist. She was the elder sister of Karl August Varnhagen, the sister-in-law of Rahel Levin, and the mother of Ottilie and Ludmilla Assing...

, Rahel and Karl August Varnhagen von Ense

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense was a German biographer, diplomat and soldier.-Biography:He was born at Düsseldorf, with siblings including Rosa Maria Varnhagen. He studied medicine in Berlin, but spent more time on philosophy and literature, which he later studied more thoroughly at Halle and...

. From 1807 to 1812 she was a governess in Wismar and Rankendorf then until 1815 she went to nurse her ill mother in Neu-Buckow.

From 1816 to 1818 she lived with a childhood friend in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, where she met Friedrich Maximilian Klinger

Friedrich Maximilian Klinger

Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger was a German dramatist and novelist.-Biography:Klinger was born of humble parentage in Frankfurt. His father died when he was a child, and his early years were a hard struggle. He was enabled, however, in 1774 to enter the university of Gießen, where he studied law...

, August von Kotzebue

August von Kotzebue

August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue was a German dramatist.One of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival in 1817. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the Burschenschaften...

 and count Jacob Johann Sievers. This was followed by temporary stays in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and at her sister's house in Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

. Fanny and the writer Amalie Schoppe

Amalie Schoppe

Amalie Schoppe was a German author. She was also known by her pseudonyms Adalbert von Schonen, Amalia and Marie. She is most notable as the author of books for children and young people, with an oeuvre totaling 200 volumes...

 also headed a girls' reformatory in Hamburg. In 1820 Fanny moved to Schandau - during this time she befriended Helmina von Chezy

Helmina von Chézy

Helmina von Chézy , born Wilhelmine von Klencke, was a German journalist, poet and playwright, most famous for writing the libretto for Carl Maria von Weber's opera Euryanthe and the play Rosamunde, for which Franz Schubert provided incidental music.This article uses material from the German...

, Elisa von der Recke

Elisa von der Recke

Elisa von der Recke was a Baltic German writer and poet.-Family:Elisa von der Recke was born in Schönberg, Skaistkalne parish, Courland, the daughter of Reichsgraf Friedrich von Medem and his wife, Louise Dorothea von Korff. Her younger half-sister was Dorothea von Medem, for whom she carried out...

, Ludwig Tieck

Ludwig Tieck

Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...

, Christoph August Tiedge

Christoph August Tiedge

Christoph August Tiedge was a German poet.-Biography:Tiedge was the eldest son of the rector of the Gelehrten Stadtschule in Gardelegen and his wife, and studied law in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. In 1788 he went to Halberstadt, acting for four years as secretary to the Domherr von Steder...

 and countess Egloffstein. She then temporarily lost her sight due to illness and so in 1829 she moved to stay in Weißenfels with her sister Betty. Worried friends then selected some of her writings and published then on a subscription basis, raising 5,000 Taler for her. After that she mainly worked translating French and English works into German. From 1841 she lived in Dessau.

Works

• (anonymous:) Alwine von Rosen, in: Journal für deutsche Frauen, 1805 und 1806
• Thekla
• Natalie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des weiblichen Herzens, 1812
• Thorilde von Adlerstein, oder Frauenherz und Frauenglück. Eine Erzählung aus der großen Welt, 1816
• Mädchenherz und Mädchenglück. Erzählungen für Gebildete, 1817
• Kleine Erzählungen, 1817
• Briefe auf einer Reise nach Petersburg, an Freunde geschrieben, 1819
• Lilien. Erzählungen, 4 Bde. 1821/25
• Sidoniens Witwenjahre, nach dem Französischen frei bearbeitet, 2 Tle., 1822
• Lebensbilder, 2 Bde., 1824
• Die Spanier auf Fühnen. Historisches Schauspiel, 1827
• Ausgewählte Schriften, 15 Bde., 1830
• Zwei Jahre in Petersburg. Aus den Papieren eines alten Diplomaten, 1833
• Erzählungen und Novellen, fremde und eigene, 2 Tle., 1833
• Reseda, 1837
• Spiegelbilder, 1837
• Galerie weiblicher Nationalbilder, 2 Tle., 1838
• Gesammelte Erzählungen, 4 Bde., 1840–42
• Heinrich von England und seine Söhne. Eine alte Sage neu erzählt, 2 Tle., 1842

External links

• Books on and by Fanny Tarnow in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin