Marianne Ehrmann

Marianne Ehrmann
„Verfasserin der ,Philosophie eines Weibs'“, paper cutting by an unknown artist, being the only known portrait of Marianne Ehrmann.
Born	(1755-11-25)25 November 1755 Rapperswil
Died	14 August 1795(1795-08-14) (aged 39) Stuttgart
Other names	Marianne Ehrmann-Brentano; Madame Sternheim; Maria Anna Antonia Sternheim
Occupation	journalist, novelist and publicist
Years active	1780–1795

Marianne Ehrmann (née: Marianne Brentano-Corti, also Marianne Ehrmann-Brentano and Madame Sternheim, born 25 November 1755; † 14 August 1795) was one of the first women novelists, publicists and journalists in the German-speaking countries.

Born in Rapperswil in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland, Marianne was the daughter of Sebastiana Antonia Corti (Curti) and the merchant Franz Xaver Brentano. She had nine siblings; her mother died on 22 April 1770. Around 1772/73 Franz Xaver Brentano moved with his children to Wurzach in southern Germany. In 1775 died also her father, and a little later died her only surviving sister. Marianne Brentano moved to her uncle Dominic von Brentano, who was a priest and chaplain at the Imperial Abbey of Kempten. He supported the young woman in the following years, when Marianne Brentano worked as a governess in aristocratic houses.

Around 1777 Marianne Brentano married an officer of unknown name, but she got divorced in 1779, after he gambled away the money and was violent, and she may have had a miscarriage caused by the ill-treatment of her husband. He indebted, stole money and fled to escape the punishment. Marianne was financially, physically and psychologically ruined after two years of marriage, fell into insanity and was guarded for months. With the help of her uncle, she recovered. About three years later, she went to Vienna, where she unsuccessfully worked as a governess, and then joined a troupe of actors. Under the name Madame Sternheim she stayed a number of years on the stage.

With various theater companies, among them with the group of Simon Friedrich Koberwein in Strasbourg, Marianne Brentano toured Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and even Hungary and Transylvania.

Her first books "Müssige Stunden eines Frauenzimmers" (literally: Moderate hours of a dame) and "Von einer Beobachterin" (from an observer) in 1784, and later "Philosophie" were published anonymously; the latter caused quite a stir. During a stay of the troupe in Strasbourg, Marianne Ehrmann met the junior postdoctoral lawyer Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann. Due to the resistance of his parents, they had to marry in secret in 1785, though her seven years younger husband lived with his parents and they met only in the evening until 1786, when the reconciliation with Ehrmanns parents occurred. Marianne Ehrmann published under the pseudonym Maria Anna Antonia Sternheim the spectacle "Leichtsinn und gutes Herz oder die Folgen der Erziehung", meaning literally levity and good heart or the effects of education. The Duke Charles of Württemberg and his wife Franziska provided Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann as professor in the Charles School, but they moved to Stuttgart in 1788, when the duke broke his word given. So Marianne Ehrmann became the co-editor on the journal "Der Beobachter" (observer), that was published by her husband.