Benedikte Naubert

Who was Benedikte Naubert?

Benedikte Naubert, born Christiana Benedicta Hebenstreit was a German writer who published anonymously more than 50 historical novels, and is considered a pioneer of the genre in the 1780s. Today she is largely unknown, even in Germany.

She was born in Leipzig. The daughter of a professor of medicine who died in December 1757, she received from her mother and half-brother, a professor of theology, a thorough education in philosophy, history, Latin, and Greek, and learned to play the piano and harp. She began writing early, but her work did not appear until 1785, with The Story of Emma, Daughter of Charlemagne, which concerns the legend of Einhard's elopement with the fictional Emma. It was widely imitated.

Nearly all her books were published anonymously, through the agency of her half-brother, and the scholarship they displayed prompted speculation as to their author. Several men were suspected, among them Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Müller. Against her will, in 1817 her identity was revealed in an article in the Zeitung für die elegante Welt. Her next book, Rosalba bore her true name for the first time. She died in 1819 in Leipzig, where she had travelled for an eye operation.