Marie Madeleine

Born Gertrud Günther in East Prussia in 1881, she later became Baroness Gertrud von Puttkamer and published as Marie-Madeleine. Sources consistently identify her as a German writer and poet, and note that she is especially associated with erotic poetry and prose, including lesbian-themed and homoerotic writing.

Her best-known early book was Auf Kypros, published in 1900. Contemporary reference summaries report that it sold more than a million copies during her lifetime, a sign of how widely her work circulated despite — and perhaps partly because of — its provocative reputation.

She died in 1944. Some sources disagree on the exact day of her death, giving either September 27 or September 30, but they agree on the year, place, and the broad outline of a career that made Marie-Madeleine a striking and controversial literary figure in early 20th-century Germany.