Beating the Odds: Sophie Albrecht (1756–1840), a Successful Woman Writer and Publisher in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

The example of the German writer, editor, publisher and actress Sophie Albrecht provides noteworthy insights into female commercial authorship in the late eighteenth century. Considering her family background and early education, her subsequent career choices and her achievements in networking with like- minded representatives of the German cultural scene, it becomes clear that she stood a good chance of becoming a successful professional writer. Albrecht fought for the recognition of a small literate, and even smaller literary audience in rivalry with male colleagues. Despite inequality, Albrecht succeeded in this artistic as well as entrepreneurial chal-lenge, and even occasionally outperformed idolised contemporary male writers, such as Schiller. Her example demonstrates the ways in which gendering processes worked in favour of male cultural achievements from the very beginnings of media history, and how reception history has solidified this.