Ludmilla Assing

Born in Hamburg in 1821, Ludmilla Assing grew up in an intellectual family and became known as a writer, translator, and editor. She was the niece of the poet Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, and after his death she took on the important task of editing and publishing parts of his papers and correspondence.

That work brought her real attention, because the letters opened a vivid window onto 19th-century cultural and political life. Assing was also active in her own right as an author and translator, and her interests reached beyond literature into liberal politics and public affairs.

Later in life she lived in Italy, where she died in Florence in 1880. Today she is remembered not only for her own writing, but also for helping preserve and share a major archive of German literary and political history.