The New International Encyclopædia/Ebner-Eschenbach, Marie, Baroness von

EBNER-ESCHENBACH, āb'nẽr ĕsh'en-bäG, Marie, Baroness von (1830—). An Austrian novelist, dramatist, and poet. Born a Countess Dubsky at Castle Zdislawitz, Moravia, she married, in 1848, an Austrian officer, who died in 1898. She lived alternately at her birthplace and in Vienna. Her first publications are dramas now unimportant. Her fiction, which attracted immediate attention, begins with Erzählungen (1875). This was followed by Božena (1876); Neue Erzählungen (1878); Dorf- und Schlossgeschichten (1884); Zwei Comtessen (1885); Neue Dorf- und Schlossgeschichten (1886); Das Gemeindekind (1887); Lotti die Uhrmacherin (1889); Ein kleiner Roman (1889); Miterlebtes (1890); Unsühnbar (1890); Margarete (1891); Drei Novellen (1892); Glaubenslos? (1893); Das Schädliche and Die Totenwacht (1894); Rittmeister Brand and Bertram Vogelweid (1896); Alte Schule (1897); Aus Spätherbsttagen (1901). Baroness Ebner-Eschenbach wrote also a popular collection of Aphorismen (1880), and verses collected as Parabeln, Märchen und Gedichte (1892). Six volumes of her Gesammelte Schriften were published in 1893. Her work is distinguished for its power of description, its psychological insight, its humor, wit, and polished precision of style. Her sense of proportion in novelistic construction has also been highly praised. For her biography, consult: Necker (Berlin, 1900), and Bettelheim (ib., 1900).