Henriette Wilhelmine Arndt Hanke

Born Henriette Wilhelmine Arndt in Jauer, Silesia, she is generally listed in modern references as having been born on 24 June 1785 and dying on 15 July 1862. She later married the pastor Gottfried Heinrich Carl Hanke and became stepmother to his children; after his death in 1819, she returned to her parents' home and devoted herself to writing.

Hanke became one of the most productive and widely read German novelists of the Biedermeier era. Reference works describe her as especially known for stories centered on family life, and they credit her with an enormous output of novels and story collections that allowed her to earn a living by her pen.

There is some disagreement in older sources about her birth year, with 1784 also appearing in biographical records. Even so, the broad outline is clear: she was a remarkably successful popular writer whose books found many readers in the German-speaking world during the first half of the 19th century.