A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Tarnow, Fanny
TARNOW, FANNY,
Is one of the most remarkable and most fertile of all the modern German authoresses. Her genius was developed by misfortune and suffering: while yet an infant, she fell from a window two stories high, and was taken up. to the amazement of the assistants, without any apparent injury, except a few bruises; but all the vital functions suffered, and during ten or twelve years she was extended on a couch, neither joining in any of the amusements of childhood, nor subjected to the usual routine of female education. She educated herself. She read incessantly, and, as it was her only pleasure, books of every description, good and bad, were furnished her without restraint. She was about eleven years old when she made her first known poetical attempt, inspired by her own feelings and situation. It was a dialogue between herself and the angel of death. In her seventeenth year she was sufficiently recovered to take charge of her father's family, after he had lost, by some sudden misfortune, his whole property. He held, subsequently, a small office under government, the duties of which were principally performed by his admirable daughter. Her first writings were anonymous, and for a long time her name was unknown. Her most celebrated novel, the "Thekla," was published in 1815; and from this time she has enjoyed a high and public reputation. Fanny Tamow resides, or did reside, in Dresden.