Olga Eschenbach

Olga Eschenbach was the pen name of Johanna Hering, a German writer of the 19th century. According to major German biographical references, she was born on January 29, 1821, in Memel and died in 1884 in southern France.

She trained and worked as a governess after her family suffered financial ruin, and that experience strongly influenced her fiction. Sources describe her as a writer of books for young people, especially girls, with stories that often reflect questions of character, duty, independence, and everyday life.

Her work also seems to have been shaped by travel and by her years earning a living outside her family home. She published under the name Olga Eschenbach, and some of her stories later appeared in English translation, including The Pearls and Molly and Kitty, or Peasant Life in Ireland; with Other Tales.