Alice Gurschner (née Pollak, 8 October 1869,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

– 26 March 1944,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

) was an Austrian writer. She wrote largely under the masculine

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Paul Althof. She was married to the sculptor

Gustav Gurschner Gustav Gurschner (28 September 1873Thieme and Becker (1922).–2 August 1970) was an Austrian sculptor whose works ranged from monuments to decorative everyday objects like lamps and ashtrays in the Art Nouveau style. He was the husband of the wr ...

Biography

Pollak grew up in a middle-class

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in Vienna, and received private lessons in her secondary school subjects,

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

and

modern languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such a ...

. In 1897 she married the sculptor

, a co-founder of the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austri ...

, and had three children by him. Some of her work was published in the Secession magazine '' Ver Sacrum''. Her family did not approve of her marriage to a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. After the marriage, the Gurschners lived in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

for two years. After her father's death in 1905, she converted to Catholicism and became a

monarchist Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...

and an

Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

. As 'Paul Althof', she had newspaper and magazine articles published in the Neue Wiener Journal, the Illustritre Wiener Extrablatt, the Wiener Fremden-Blatt, the Österreichische Volks-Zeitung and the

Berliner Börsen-Courier The ''Berliner Börsen-Courier'' (Berlin stock exchange courier, BBC) was a German left-liberal daily newspaper published from 1868 to 1933. It focused primarily on prices of securities traded on the stock exchanges and securities information abou ...

. She was a member of the Austrian Association of Women Artists.

Works

* Paul Althof: ''Drei Häuser: Roman aus Alt-Österreich'' (''Three Houses: A Novel of Old Austria''). Europa-Verlag, Vienna, 1938 * Paul Althof: ''Semiramis: Ein Märchen für Könige'' (''Semiramis: A Fairy Tale for Kings''). Vienna: Heller, 1914 * Paul Althof: ''Der heilige Kuß'' (''The Holy Kiss''). Dramatic poem in three acts, Stuttgart & Berlin: Cotta, 1911 * Paul Althof: ''Die wunderbare Brücke und andere Geschichten'' (''The Wonderful Bridge and other stories''), Stuttgart: Cotta, 1908 * Paul Althof: ''Das verlorene Wort'' (''The Lost World''). Novel, Stuttgart & Berlin: J.G. Cotta Nachf, 1907 * ''Kunsthyänen'' (''Art Hyenas''). Drama in three acts (manuscript), Berlin: Bloch, 1903 * Paul Althof: ''Die schlafende Seele'' (''The Sleeping Soul''). Short story, Berlin 1900 * Paul Althof: ''Coghetta'', Berlin: Freund & Jeckel, 1894 * Paul Althof: ''Die Asolanen'' (''The Asolan''), Vienna: C. Daberkow, 1893 * Paul Althof: ''Gernrode. Poetische Erzählung aus dem zehnten Jahrhundert'' (''Gernrode: Poetic Tale of the Tenth Century''), Leipzig 1890

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gurschner, Alice 1869 births 1944 deaths 19th-century Austrian women writers 20th-century Austrian women writers Jewish Austrian writers Roman Catholic writers Writers from Vienna Pseudonymous women writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers Writers from Austria-Hungary