Ellen Lenneck

"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory!"
Byron, Quoted by Helene Weichardt in Das Fräulein von Eppingheim.
Helene Weichardt's signature from her marriage certificate in 1879. Reproduced courtesy of Stadtarchiv Eisenach, Germany.

Ellen Lenneck was the writing pseudonym of Martha Julie Antoinette Helene Weichardt (1851–1880), a German author of novels and novellas. She was the only known daughter of novelist and literary editor Friederike Henkel, and a descendant from a family of industrialists and artists from Kassel and the Hesse region of Germany.

Life and achievements

Portrait of Helene Weichardt's mother, Friederike Henkel. Painted by Carl Johann Arnold, 1850s.
Portrait of Helene Weichardt's grandmother, Antonie Arnold. Pencil drawing by Adolph Menzel, c 1841.

Family background

Helene Weichardt was born in Kassel Germany on 5 February 1851 into a family who had strong social connections within the developing industrialised German society of the early 19th century. They represented a vibrant combination of industrial, social and creative tendencies. This pattern of industrial skills, together with artistic abilities were personified in a number of Helene Weichardt's family, including her husband Carl Weichardt de:Karl Weichardt (an architect and artist who participated in the building of The Reichstag in Berlin and also designed the Eisenach Theatre (Thüringer Landestheater Eisenach), her mother Friederike Henkel, born Friederike Arnold (writer of several novels, short stories and later a literary editor, who had lived in the same city as The Brothers Grimm), her uncle Carl Johann Arnold (the royal count painter tutored by Adolph Menzel), her grandfather Carl Heinrich Arnold (a wallpaper designer and artist associated with his business-skilled brother), her grandmother Antonie Arnold, born Antonie Reuter (a singer and actress at the Kassel Theatre), and their close family friend, the German artist Adolph Menzel, whose painting Portrait of Friederike Arnold in 1845 has been on public display at the National Gallery Berlin Nationalgalerie Berlin for over a century.

Early life and personal development

There is generally very little information available concerning Helene Weichardt. Her adult life was relatively short since she died at the age of twenty nine. Her suggested considerable abilities in literature and music were commented upon by literary editors during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her initial interest in music developed when she was a child living in Kassel with her parents. Her grandmother was a singer and actress at the Kassel Theatre, near to where her mother grew up. Later, her interest in literature was attributed to the city of Bern Switzerland, where she lived when her family moved there, due to her father's employment in Bern.

Literary works

During the 1870s, she wrote several fictional works, which were published either as separate novels, or in serial format within weekly journals including Deutsche Roman Zeitung and Deutsche Roman-Bibliothek, later re-printed within the publishing houses' year books. One literary work was published in Deutsche Roman-Bibliothek in 1882, after her death. Other literary works (other than those stated in her bibliography, below) were mentioned without name in the German literature lexicons by Franz Brümmer and Heinrich Gross.

Images of the author

Contemporary researchers have not located any images of Helene Weichardt.

Death

Helene Weichardt died on Sunday 16 May 1880 at 8 o'clock in the evening, only six months after her marriage. There is an absence of information about the cause of her death. There is also ambiguity about the place of her death. Her death announcement implies that her husband wrote it on 18 May 1880 in Görbersdorf. In 1880, there were two locations in Germany by this name. One is situated at the South-eastern boundary of Oederan Germany, and the other location in Germany was renamed Sokołowsko when it became part of Poland in 1945.

Helene Weichardt's death announcement in the Eisenacher Zeitung newspaper published on 20 May 1880, written by her husband and mother. Reproduced courtesy of Stadtarchiv Eisenach, Germany.

The evidence from the death announcement and entries in German literature lexicons do not clarify in which location she died. Görbersdorf near to Oederan is a small settlement about 1 km long, and has changed little since 1880. Sokołowsko was the location of a sanatorium for treating patients suffering from chronic lung disorders, including Tuberculosis.

She was buried at the new southern cemeteries (neuen südl. Friedhofe aus statt) in Leipzig on 20 May 1880 at 6 o'clock in the evening. The Leipzig Stadtarchiv has clarified that this reference from the death announcement implies that she was buried at the Neuen Johannisfriedhof in Leipzig, which was converted into the Friedenspark in 1970. No graves remain in the park apart from some masonry from tombs relocated to the South-Eastern boundary and headstones set into the wall at the Northern gatehouse.

Restoration and re-publication of literary works

A research project based in Berlin between 2004 and 2012 researched the life and achievements of Helene Weichardt and Friederike Henkel. The project acquired copies of all the authors' literary works mentioned in literature lexicons (see bibliography), and compiled digital scans as public domain e-texts.

Biography

The existing information relating to Helene Weichardt is mainly from bibliographical or biographical entries in German literature lexicons from the late 19th century, and additionally, information from her marriage certificate at the Stadtarchiv Eisenach, Germany. Since her death in 1880, a small number of entries have made in German literature lexicons and similar bibliographical or biographical publications.

Bibliography

The title page from volume one of Helene Weichardt's novel Der Erbe von Bedford, published in 1876.

Novels and novellas:

References

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Online

(Forthcoming)

Further information

External links

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