Elise Reimarus (22 January 1735, Hamburg, as ''Margaretha Elisabeth Reimarus'' – 2 September 1805, Hamburg) was a German writer, educator, translator and salon-holder. She was the sister of

Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus (11 November 1729 – 6 June 1814) was a German physician, natural historian and economist. He was the son of Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the brother of the writer Elise Reimarus and the father (by his first marriage) ...

and the daughter of

Hermann Samuel Reimarus Hermann Samuel Reimarus (22 December 1694, Hamburg – 1 March 1768, Hamburg), was a German philosopher and writer of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a existenc ...

. Elise Reimarus was known as one of the most erudite women of Hamburg and she was in epistolary contact with notable intellectuals of her time, including Moses Mendelssohn,

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (, ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the developmen ...

, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi,

Carl Leonhard Reinhold Karl Leonhard Reinhold (26 October 1757 – 10 April 1823) was an Austrian philosopher who helped to popularise the work of Immanuel Kant in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (''Elementarphilosophie'') also influenced German ideal ...

. She was also a personal friend of fellow-educationist

Caroline Rudolphi Caroline Rudolphi (also ''Karoline''; 1753–1811) was a German educationist and poet. Born to a poor family in Magdeburg and growing up in Potsdam (Margraviate of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia), she was discovered by composer Johann Friedr ...

. Reimarus published translations from the English and French, besides a number of original works. For some time she presided over the

Reimarus Hermann Samuel Reimarus (22 December 1694, Hamburg – 1 March 1768, Hamburg), was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics f ...

family's literary salon, one of the precursors of the fashion of such salons in German Romanticism. Despite receiving numerous proposals, she remained unmarried.

References

*Almut Marianne Grützner Spalding ''Elise Reimarus (1735-1805)'', Königshausen & Neumann, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Reimarus, Elise 1735 births 1805 deaths 18th-century German educators 18th-century German women writers 18th-century German translators Writers from Hamburg German translators German salon-holders