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Therese Megerle von Mühlfeld

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Therese Megerle von Mühlfeld
Born1813 (1813)
Preßburg, Kingdom of Hungary
Died4 July 1865 (aged 51–52)
Occupation(s)Dramatist, writer, translator
Spouse
Georg Megerle von Mühlfeld
​
​
(m. 1829)​

Therese Megerle von Mühlfeld (born Therese Pop(p) von Popenburg; 1813 - 4 July 1865) was an Austrian writer and translator (from French and English) who came to prominence, primarily, as a dramatist.[1][2]

Life

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Therese Pop was born in Preßburg, the daughter of a Hungarian landowner. She was only 16 when in 1829 she married Georg Johann Wilhelm Megerle von Mühlfeld, a surgeon and dentist, in Preßburg.[3][4] She came to the marriage with 60,000 florins, which was a very substantial dowry. It enabled him to abandon his medical work and take over the city theatre. Later, in 1850, he took over at the Theater in der Josefstadt on the western side of Vienna. The Josefstadt theatre was well established and apparently busy during the four years he spent there. Due to his lack of business acumen, and partly bad luck, he lost all his and his wife's money.[2][4] After becoming bankrupt, Megerle died. It is said[by whom?] that he left for his wife nothing but a suit.[1][2]

Despite her grief, Therese set about building herself a career as a dramatist. She had already begun to establish herself as a writer, with novellas and short stories published in magazines or journals such as Sonntagsblätter [de] and Ludwig Augustus Frankl's Abendzeitung, and was thereby met with modest success. A collection of her pieces was published in three volumes in 1844 under the title Novellen und Erzählungen (Novellas and stories). One critic[who?] described it as "very entertaining, full of life and action".[2] Her novel Die beiden Graßel (The two Grassels) had no fewer than five editions as well as a stage adaptation, which she herself wrote. In 1848, it ran for 80 successive nights.[2][3] She became progressively more prolific as a dramatist, and began to adapt English and French novels, producing more than 50 stage works pieces. However, a critic[who?] argued that her output was devoid of artistic worth.[2]

Selected works

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Her plays included:[2]

Her final piece was called Die Eselshaut ("The donkey skin"), a reworking from a French piece,[which?] for which authorship was attributed to her son, Julius.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b Elisabeth Gibbels (9 March 2018). "Megerle von Mühlfeld, Therese 1813-1865". Lexikon der deutschen Übersetzerinnen 1200–1850. Frank & Timme GmbH. pp. 102–103. ISBN 978-3-7329-0422-8.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Constantin von Wurzbach (1867). "Megerle von Mühlfeld, Therese (Schriftstellerin, geb. zu Preßburg im Jahre 1813, gest. zu Wien 4. Juli 1865)". Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich (in German). p. 258. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  3. ^ a b Franz Brümmer (compiler) (1913). "Megerle von Mühlfeld, Therese". Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig & Berlin: Philipp Reclam jun. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  4. ^ a b Ruth Achlama (20 October 2007). "Die Unheil bringende Zauberkrone?". Das Theater in der Josefstadt, früher eine Vorstadtbühne, hat in seiner 219 Jahre langen Geschichte Turbulentes erlebt. Nicht alle seine Direktoren kamen aus der Theater-Branche - einer war Zahnarzt - und auch der Zirkus hatte schon Einzug gehalten. ORF, Wien. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
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