Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd

Baroness Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd (November 9 1773 - July 2 1856) was a Danish author, born in Copenhagen. Her maiden name was Buntzen.

Her great beauty early attracted notice, and before she was seventeen she married the famous writer Peter Andreas Heiberg. She bore him a son in the following year, the poet and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg. In 1800, her husband was exiled and she obtained a divorce, marrying in December 1801 the Swedish Baron Carl Fredrik Ehrensvärd, who was himself a political fugitive, as implicated in the murder in 1792 of Swedish king Gustavus III. Her second husband, who presently adopted the name of Gyllembourg (after his mother, who belonged to the Gyllenborg family), died in 1815.

In 1822 she followed her son to Kiel, where he was appointed professor, and in 1825 she returned with him to Copenhagen. In 1827 she first appeared as an author by publishing her romance of "The Polonius Family" in her son's newspaper "Flyvende Post". In 1828 the same journal contained "The Magic Ring", which was immediately followed by "En Hverdags-Historie" ("An Everyday Story"). The success of this anonymous work was so great that the author adopted the name of "The Author of An Everyday Story" until the end of her career.

In 1833–1834 she published three volumes of "Old and New Novels". "New Stories" followed in 1835 and 1836. In 1839 two novels, "Montanus the Younger" and "Ricida", were released; in 1840, "One in All"; in 1841, "Near and Far"; in 1843, "A Correspondence"; in 1844, "The Cross Ways"; in 1845, "Two Generations".

From 1849 to 1851 the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd was engaged in bringing out a library edition of her collected works in twelve volumes. On July 2, 1856 she died in her son's house at Copenhagen. It was only then did the secret of her authorship transpire, for throughout her life she had preserved the closest reticence on the subject even with her nearest friends.

See J. L. Heiberg, "Peter Andreas Heiberg og Thomasine Gyllembourg" (Copenhagen, 1882), and L. Kornelius-Hybel, "Nogle Bemærkninger om P. A. Heiberg og Fru Gyllembourg" (Copenhagen, 1883).

The danish philsopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote an extended review of her novel 'Two Ages' (named "Two Generations" earlier in this article) and a critique of its ideas. It is available in the Princeton series of Kierkegaard's Writings, as "The Two Ages: Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 14".

----