Emilie Knopf

Emilie Knopf is the attributed author of Der Liebe Lust und Leid der Frau zur Frau, a German novel first published in Berlin in 1895. Modern booksellers, Project Gutenberg, and historical research pages all connect her name with that work, which centers on romantic love between women.

What makes Knopf especially intriguing is how little can be confirmed about her biography. A historical note summarized by the lesbian history site Lesbengeschichte says evidence for her being a real person comes from an 1898 newspaper item connected to the surviving copy of the book. More recent descriptions of the novel say it was banned under obscenity laws, that Knopf was tried and fined for distributing it, and that the text later disappeared from view before being rediscovered.

Because the record is so fragmentary, Knopf is remembered less through a well-documented life story than through the remarkable survival of her novel. That has given her a small but important place in the history of queer writing in German, especially for readers interested in forgotten voices and recovered literary history.