Charlotte von Ahlefeld

Who was Charlotte von Ahlefeld?

Charlotte Sophie Luise Wilhelmine von Ahlefeld was a German novelist.

Von Ahlefeld was born in Ottmannshausen, near Erfurt, as Charlotte von Seebach, to a noble family of Hanover. She began to write at a young age, with her first novel appearing in 1797, and attracted positive comments from Goethe. She married Johann Ritter von Ahlefeld, a landowner from Schleswig, on May 21, 1798. They separated in 1807, but she continued to live in Schleswig until 1821, when she moved to Weimar and befriended Charlotte von Stein. In 1846 she went to the spa town of Teplitz in Bohemia due to declining health, and died there in 1849. She wrote some of her novels under the pen name Elise Selbig, and some poetry under the name Natalia.