Six years of formative work in Speyer
Sophie von La Roche is regarded as Germany's first professional writer. She shaped the women's novel and epistolary novel as a literary form.
Sophie von La Roche, who was born in Kaufbeuren in 1730 and died in Offenbach am Main in 1807, spent six particularly productive years from 1780 in the late Baroque Hohenfeld house at Maximilianstraße 99 in Speyer, which is now a listed building. Speyer canon Christoph Philipp Willibald von Hohenfeld took in the La Roche family, who had previously lived in Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein, after Sophie's husband Georg Michael von La Roche was dismissed from the service of Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus for criticising the church.
In Speyer, Sophie von La Roche, who already had numerous contacts with important personalities of her time in Koblenz, became acquainted with Friedrich Schiller, among others. Through the marriage of her daughter Maximiliane to the Frankfurt merchant Peter Anton Brentano, she became the grandmother of Bettina von Arnim, née Brentano, and Clemens Brentano, both of whom became famous as Romantic poets.
Her work ‘Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim’, initially published anonymously in 1771, is one of the most widely read novels of the 18th century and was also translated into French, making her famous both nationally and internationally.
La Roche was also the editor and author of the first German women's magazine ‘Pomona für Teutschlands Töchter’, which was printed and published by the Speyer city printer Johann Paul Enderes from 1783 to 1784. This educational and enlightenment magazine was a counter-model to the popular magazines of the time, which mainly focussed on fashion and beauty.
On the occasion of her 275th birthday in 2005, a memorial room was opened in the Hohenfeld House (Maximilianstraße 99) to commemorate the life and work of Sophie von La Roche in the cathedral city. This presentation was designed by the literary scholars Klaus Haag and Jürgen Vorderstemann with the support of the State Library Centre (Pfälzische Landesbibliothek Speyer). Selected exhibits, presented in an authentic historical setting, offer an insight into the work of the moral and educational storyteller of the Sensitive Era.
Opening hours:
Thursday and Friday 3 to 6 pm, Saturday 10 am to 4 pm Admission to the Sophie la Roche parlour is free of charge.