Career
Other info : Bibliography
Friederike Brun's father had her first poetic experiments, as well as a travel account from Germany, published as early as 1782. These two genre also dominated the rest of her literary career. Her travelogues were fostered by a comprehensive travel activity which she, backed up by her husband's ample financial means, undertook from 1789 to 1810, for some time in company with Princess Louisa of Anhalt-Dessau (wife of Leopold III, Duke of Anhalt-Dessau) and the poet Matthisson.[4]
On her travels, she met and befriended many leading European cultural figures of the day, and they feature prominently in her travel writings. With many of them she kept up a prolific correspondence. Among the European intellectuals she associated with were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Johann Gottfried Herder, Wilhelm Grimm, and the Swiss female writer Madame de Staël with whom she formed a close friendship.[3]
With Matthisson and with the historian Johannes von Müller, she spent some time in Switzerland in the house of Charles Victor de Bonstetten, who was afterward for several years her guest in Copenhagen. Bonstetten corresponded with her, and some of his letters were later published. After a long residence in Italy, she spent the rest of her life in Copenhagen.[4]
