GYLLEMBOURG-EHRENSVARD, TII0MASINE KRISTINE, baroness, 1773-1856, the most eminent female writer of Denmark. Her great beauty early attracted notice, and before she was seventeen she married the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg. To him she bore a son, afterwards illustrious as a poet and critic, Johan Ludvig berg. In 1800 her husband was exiled and she obtained a divorce, marrying, in 1801, the Swedish baron Ehrensva.rd, himself a political fugitive. Her second husband, who presently adopted the name of Gyllembourg, (lied in 181.5. In 1822 she followed her son to Kiel, where he was appointed professor, and in 1825 she returned with him to Copenhagen. In 1827 she first appeared as an author by publishing her romance of Time Polonius Boni-1y in her son's newspaper, The Flying Post. In 1828 the same journal contained The Magic Ring, which was immediately followed by An Everyday Story. The success of this anonymous work was so great that the author adopted until the end of her career the name of The Author of an Everyday Story. From this time forward she took a foremost place among the writers of her, time, but preserved her incognito with entire success. In 1833-34 she published three volumes of Old and New Novels.
.Mw Stories followed in 1835 and 1836. In 1839 appeared two novels, Montanus the Younger and _Weida; in 1840 One in All; in 1841 Near and Far; in 1843 A Correspond ence; in 1844 The Cross Ways; in 1845 Two Generations. From 1849 to 1851 the bar oness was engaged in bringing out a library edition of her collected works in 12 vol umes. She died in her son's house at Copenhagen,' and not until then did the secret of her authorship transpire; for throughout her life she had preserved the closest reticence on the subject, even with her nearest friends. The style of Mine. Ehrensvard-Gyllem bourg is clear and sparking; for English readers no closer analogy can be found than between her and Mrs. Gaskell, and Cranford might well have been written by the witty Danish author. She introduced into the literature of her country a novel vein of realism and domestic humor, and, although she has had many imitators, she is still without a rival.