EBNER  - ESCHENBACH,

MARIE, FREIFRAU VON (1830- ), Austrian novelist, was born at Zdislavic in Moravia, on the 13th of September 183o, the daughter of a Count Dubsky . She lost her mother in early infancy, but received a careful intellectual training from two stepmothers . In 1848 she married the Austrian captain, and subsequent field-marshal, Moritz von Ebner-Eschenbach, and resided first at Vienna, then at Klosterbruck, where her husband had a military charge, and after 186o again at Vienna . The marriage was childless, and the talented wife sought consolation in literary work . In her endeavours she received assistance and encouragement from Franz Grillparzer and Freiherr von Minch -Bellinghausen . Her first essay was with the drama Maria Stuart in Schottland, which Philipp Eduard Devrient produced at the Karlsruhe theatre in r86o . After some other unsuccessful attempts in the field of drama, she found her true sphere in narrative . Commencing with Die Prinzessin von Banalien (1872), she graphic-ally depicts in Bogota (Stuttgart, 1876, 4th ed . 1899) and Das Gemeindekind (Berlin, 1887, 4th ed . 1900) the surroundings of her Moravian home, and in Lotti, die Uhrmacherin (Berlin, 1883, 4th ed . 1900), Zwei Comtessen (Berlin, 1885, 5th ed . 1898), Unsiihnbar (1890, 5th ed .

1900) and Glaubenslos ? (1893) the

life of the Austrian aristocracy in town and country . She also published Neue Erzahlungen (Berlin, 1881, 3rd ed . 1894), Aphorismen (Berlin, 188o, 4th ed . 1895) and Parabeln, Marchen and Gedichte (2nd ed., Berlin, 1892) . Fran von Ebner-Eschenbach's elegance of style, her incisive wit and masterly depiction of character give her a foremost place among the German women-writers of her time . On the occasion of her seventieth birthday the university of Vienna conferred upon her the degree of doctor of philosophy, honoris causa . An edition of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Gesammelte Schriften began to appear in 1893 (Berlin) . See A . Bettelheim, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: biographische Blatter (Berlin, 1900), and M . Necker, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, nach ihren Werken geschildert (Berlin, 1900) .