author
Edna Fern
1861–1941
A German-American writer who moved through immigrant literary circles in the Midwest, she wrote poems, stories, a novel, and at least one play under the name Edna Fern. Her work helped carry German-language literature into everyday immigrant life in the United States.
1 Audiobook
Venusmärchen: Geschichten aus einer andern Welt
by Edna Fern
About the author
Born as Fernande Anna Therese Franziska Auguste Osthaus in 1861, she became known in print as Edna Fern and later as Fernande Richter after marriage. She was born in Rössing in the Kingdom of Hannover and went on to build a writing life connected to German-speaking communities in America.
She belonged to the literary circle around Robert Reitzel and contributed frequently to his Detroit-based journal Der arme Teufel. Archival and reference records describe her as a German-American poet and author whose work included poems and stories, a novel, and at least one play.
Her books remain traceable today through library and public-domain records, including Venusmärchen: Geschichten aus einer andern Welt. She died in 1941, but her papers and surviving publications still offer a glimpse of a lively transatlantic literary world.