Adele Schopenhauer

Luise Adelaide Lavinia Schopenhauer, known as Adele Schopenhauer (12 June 1797 – 25 August 1849), was a German author. She was the sister of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and daughter of author Johanna Schopenhauer. Henriette Sommer and Adrian van der Venne were pseudonyms used by her.

Life and work

Adele Schopenhauer was born in Hamburg to Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, a businessman, and his wife Johanna. She grew up in Weimar under the influence of a circle of artists and scholars who gathered in the literary salon run by her mother, but she received no formal education. She was highly gifted and engaged in literature and poetry. She not only wrote fairy tales, poems, and novels, but was also a talented papercut artist. Both her papercuts and her literary contributions have been recognized and appreciated, especially in the English-speaking world. She was sociable and likable, but her love interests were unrequited, and she never married.

Loss of assets in 1819

In May 1819, the Danzig banking house Muhl collapsed. Johanna and Adele Schopenhauer had deposited all the money they had inherited upon Heinrich Schopenhauer's death in 1805 in that bank, and thus lost a large part of their assets when the bank collapsed. Arthur Schopenhauer had wisely left only one-third of his assets in Muhl and was not willing to engage in a settlement with Muhl. This incident led to a further deterioration of the relationship between the two women and Arthur, because they repeatedly sent him letters, in vain, asking him to approve the settlement. The further development of the lawsuit proved Arthur right. Mother and daughter settled on an agreement with a 70% loss and lost most of their wealth. Arthur, however, waited and refused to cash in his promissory notes. Muhl, who was considered a shrewd tactician, tried till the end to get Arthur to agree to a settlement with the generous offer of a 70% asset return plus a flock of sheep. But when Muhl recovered financially and again became solvent, Arthur was able to get his entire money back some years later.