author
Laura Marholm
1854–1928
A sharp, controversial voice from the fin de siècle, she wrote literary criticism, novels, and biographies that explored women’s lives and ideals. Born in Riga and active across the Baltic and Scandinavian worlds, she became known for writing that sparked debate about marriage, gender, and modern womanhood.
2 Audiobooks
Six modern women: Psychological sketches
by Laura Marholm
We Women and Our Authors
by Laura Marholm
About the author
Born Laura Mohr in Riga in 1854, she was a Baltic-German writer, essayist, critic, and translator. Sources describe her as the daughter of a Danish sea captain and a German mother, and note that she was well educated before beginning a literary career that included theatre reviews, essays, and fiction.
Her work ranged from literary criticism and biographies of women to novels whose heroines often sought meaning in marriage. She moved in Scandinavian literary circles, wrote on figures such as Henrik Ibsen, and later married the Swedish writer Ola Hansson in 1890. Through both her journalism and books, she became a visible and sometimes divisive participant in late 19th-century debates about women, psychology, and emancipation.
Although not as widely read today as some of her contemporaries, she remains an interesting figure in Nordic and Baltic literary history because of the way her writing crossed languages, countries, and cultural arguments. She died in 1928.