Early life and family

She was born at the castle of the Dubský of Třebomyslice family in Zdislawitz near Kroměříž in Moravia (present Zdislavice in the Czech Republic), the daughter of Baron (from 1843: Count) Franz Joseph Dubský of Třebomyslice, a nobleman whose family roots are deeply Catholic and Bohemian, and his wife Maria Rosalia Therese, née Baroness von Vockel, who came from a noble Protestant-Saxon background. Marie lost her mother in early infancy, but received a careful intellectual training from two stepmothers, first Baroness Eugenie von Bartenstein, and then her second step-mother, Countess Xaverine von Kolowrat-Krakowsky, who often contributed to her inspiration by taking her to the Burgtheater in Vienna periodically. Despite being part of a noble family, and having access to her family's vast libraries, she was never actually formally schooled.^[1] However, because of her curiosity, access to information, and educated family, she became auto-didact at a young age, and was taught fluent French, German, and Czech. In 1848 she married her cousin, Moritz von Ebner-Eschenbach, a physics and chemistry professor at a Viennese engineering academy. Later on, he would become an Austrian captain, and promoted to lieutenant field marshal on his retirement. The couple resided first in Vienna, then, from 1850, at Louka (Klosterbruck) near Znojmo, as the engineering academy had been relocated there, and after 1860 again in Vienna. The marriage was childless to disappointment of both of them.^[2] Marie grappled with the domestic tasks. She kept a journal and wrote letters explaining how she felt unsatisfied.^[3] It has been speculated that Marie may have suffered from "hysteria" including debilitating headaches and excessive nervousness.^[3]

Career and success

Marie began devoting herself to literary work. In her endeavours she received assistance and encouragement from Franz Grillparzer and Freiherr von Münch-Bellinghausen. Her first publicized work was the drama Maria Stuart in Scotland (German: Maria Stuart in Schottland), which Philipp Eduard Devrient produced at the Karlsruhe theatre in 1860.^[2] Then came a tragedy in five acts, Marie Roland, with several one-act dramas: Doktor Ritter, Violets (German: Das Veilchen), and The Disconsolate One. Though she was encouraged to keep writing, her relative failure in the field of playwriting had actually become somewhat of a point of an embarrassment to her family.^[4]

After these limited successes in the field of drama, she turned to narrative. Commencing with Die Prinzessin von Banalien (1872), she graphically depicts in Božena (Stuttgart, 1876, 4th ed. 1899) and Das Gemeindekind (Berlin, 1887, 4th ed. 1900) the surroundings of her Moravian home, and in Lotti, die Uhrmacherin (Berlin, 1883, 4th ed. 1900), Zwei Comtessen (Berlin, 1885, 5th ed. 1898), Unsühnbar (1890, 5th ed. 1900) and Glaubenslos? (1893) the life of the Austrian aristocracy in town and country.^[2]

Much of Ebner-Eschenbach's more mainstream success is accredited to Julius Rodenberg due to his publishing Ebner-Eschenbach's work in his popular periodical, Die Deutsche Rundschau.^[5] In 1875, her half-sister, composer Julie Waldburg-Wurzach, used her social contacts at Cotta Verlag (today Klett-Cotta Verlag) to market some of Ebner-Eschenbach's work. Ebner-Eschenbach also published Neue Erzählungen (Berlin, 1881, 3rd ed. 1894), Aphorismen (Berlin, 1880, 4th ed. 1895) and Parabeln, Märchen und Gedichte (2nd ed., Berlin, 1892). Von Ebner-Eschenbach's elegance of style, her incisive wit and masterly depiction of character give her a foremost place among the German women writers of her time. On the occasion of her 70th birthday the University of Vienna conferred upon her the degree of doctor of philosophy, honoris causa. An edition of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Works) began to appear in 1893 (Berlin).^[2]

Throughout her life, she had never created literature or plays for monetary reasons, and so, in her will, she left, as to aid other writers in their own endeavors, the compensation she had received.^[1] She died in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.

The Marie Ebner-Eschenbach park in Währing, Vienna, is named after her.