Auguste Groner (née Kopallik; 16 April 1850 − 7 March 1929), was an Austrian writer internationally notable for detective fiction. She also published under the pseudonyms Olaf Björnson, A. of the Paura, Renorga, and Metis.
Life
Auguste Groner was born in Vienna in 1850, the daughter of an accountant. One of her brothers was the painter Franz Kopallik, and another was the theologian Josef Kopallik. She was educated in Vienna, both at the painting school at the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna and at the Vienna woman's teacher training institute. From 1876 to 1905 she worked as a primary school teacher in Vienna. In 1879 she married Richard Groner, a journalist and lexicographer. Around 1882 she began writing, initially juvenile fiction and historical fiction. Around 1890, she turned to crime fiction, creating the first serial police detective in German crime literature, Joseph Müller, who appears for the first time in the novella The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow, which was published in 1890. Outside of Austria, she is most known for her crime stories.
Bibliography
Auguste Groner (1959). In Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950. Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, page. 72.
Kramlovsky, Beatrix. (2011). Show Your Face, oh Violence: Crime Fiction as Written by Austrian Women Writers. World Literature Today Vol. 85, No. 3: 13–15.
Lindenstruth, Gerhard. (1992). Auguste Groner (1850–1929), eine illustrierte Bibliographie, Selbstverlag, Gießen
Tannert, Mary. (1992). Auguste Groner's Mystery and Detective Fiction. University of Tennessee (doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Henry Kratz).
