Blanche Willis Howard

Blanche Willis Howard, ca.1890

Blanche Willis Howard (born July 21, 1847 in Bangor (Maine) , † October 7, 1898 in Munich ) was an American writer who spent the most productive years of her life in Germany .

Life

Blanche Willis Howard comes from a long-established family in Bangor, Maine , where she spent her childhood and youth and also went to school. After graduating from high school, she attended private school in New York City for a year . In 1875 she immediately achieved her literary breakthrough with the novel One Summer, set in a coastal town in her home province . Shortly afterwards she went to Germany, where she worked as a journalist, travel and novelist and educator. She settled in Stuttgart and married Julius von Teuffel , the court physician of the King of Württemberg , in 1890 , which the New York Times was worth a report. Her husband died in 1896 and two years later Blanche Willis Howard also succumbed to an illness in Munich . She spent the last years of her life with her sons in Stuttgart and on Guernsey . Blanche Willis von Teuffel was buried in Heidelberg .

The multi-talented author - she was considered the perfect housewife, was an excellent swimmer and pianist and worked in various charitable institutions - was a welcome guest in the higher circles of Stuttgart and Munich. Her circle of friends included musicians like Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt and writers like Paul Heyse , with whom she was close friends.

Cover of the German translation by Guenn published by Robert Lutz (Stuttgart) in 1889

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Blanche Willis Howard has published a total of 14 books, mostly novels, most of which were written in Germany and sent to publishers in Boston and New York for publication .

Her most important works were One Year Abroad (Boston, 1877; German translation Schweinfurth, 2008); Aunt Serena (Boston, 1881); Guenn: A Wave on the Breton Coast (Boston, 1884; German translation Stuttgart 1889); Aulney Tower (Boston, 1886); Tony, the Maid (a short story first published in Harper's Magazine ); The Open Door (Boston and New York, 1889) and the collection of short stories Seven on the Highway (Boston, 1897). It was only after her death that Dionysius the Weaver's Heart's Desire (New York, 1899), The Garden of Eden (New York, 1900) and The humming top: or, Debit and credit in the next world (New York, 1903) were published. Together with the Scottish writer William Sharp , she wrote the epistolary novel A Fellowe and his Wife (Boston and New York, 1892). In addition to her literary work, her numerous journalistic activities should be mentioned, such as the weekly correspondence on European topics for the Boston Evening Transcript , which served as a preparatory work for her second book One Year Abroad , a regular column in Collier's Weekly for many years, and her editorial work for the 1875 English-language Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine, founded by Ferdinand Freiligrath and published in Stuttgart .

Web links

• Literature by and about Blanche Willis Howard in the catalog of the German National Library
• Olivia Howard Dunbar: Blanche Willis Howard in Munich . In: Women authors of our day in their homes: personal descriptions and interviews , ed. by Francis Whiting Halsey, New York: Pott, 1903 (originally published July 16, 1898 in the New York Times ).