author
Jolanthe Marès
1868–1945
A once-popular Berlin novelist, she wrote sharp, emotionally charged stories about marriage, desire, and social constraint. Her best-known book was successful enough to inspire a film by Ernst Lubitsch, though her work later fell out of view.
1 Audiobook
Begierde : Ein Berliner Roman
by Jolanthe Marès
About the author
Born in Berlin in 1868, she published fiction under the name Jolanthe Marès and is also listed in library records under other names, including Selma Reichel and Selma Lesser. Reliable biographical records agree on her life dates, 1868–1945, and identify her as a German writer.
She is chiefly remembered for a series of novels published between about 1914 and 1934, often described as Sittenromane—novels focused on manners, relationships, and the pressures of society. Her best-known work, Lillis Ehe, was a major commercial success by 1919, and it later served as the basis for Ernst Lubitsch’s 1924 film Three Women.
Her career also reflects the harder history around books in Germany: records note that her complete body of work was placed on a list of prohibited literature under the Nazi regime in 1938. Today, she is a more obscure figure, but surviving editions and library references show a writer who once had a real popular readership in Berlin and beyond.