1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Edgren-Leffler, Anne Charlotte

EDGREN-LEFFLER, ANNE CHARLOTTE, duchess of Cajanello (1849–1892), Swedish author, daughter of the mathematician Prof. C. O. Leffler, was born on the 1st of October 1849. Her first volume of stories appeared in 1869, but the first to which she attached her name was Ur Lifvet (“From Life,” 1882), a series of realistic sketches of the upper circles of Swedish society, followed by three other collections with the same title. Her earliest plays, Skådespelerskan (“The Actress,” 1873), and its successors, were produced anonymously in Stockholm, but in 1883 her reputation was established by the success of Sanna Kvinnor (“True Women”), and En Räddande engel (“An Angel of Deliverance”). Sanna Kvinnor is directed against false femininity, and was well received in Germany as well as in Sweden. Anne Leffler had married in 1872 G. Edgren, but about 1884 she was separated from her husband, who did not share her advanced views. She spent some time in England, and in 1885 produced her Hur man gör godt (“How men do good”), followed in 1888 by Kampen för lyckan (“The Struggle for Happiness”), in which she had the help of Sophie Kovalevsky. Another volume of the Ur Lisvet series appeared in 1889; and Familjelycka (“Domestic Happiness,” 1891) was produced in the year after her second marriage, with the Italian mathematician, Pasquale del Pezzo, duca di Cajanello. She died at Naples on the 21st of October 1892. Her dramatic method forms a connecting link between Ibsen and Strindberg, and its masculine directness, freedom from prejudice, and frankness gave her work a high estimation in Sweden. Her last book was a biography (1892) of her friend Sophie (Sonya) Kovalevsky, by way of introduction to Sonya’s autobiography. An English translation (1895) by A. de Furnhjelm and A. M. Clive Bayley contains a biographical note on Fru Edgren-Leffler by Lily Wolffsohn, based on private sources.

See also Ellen Key, Anne Charlotte Leffler (Stockholm, 1893).