Eva König (22nd March 1736 - 10th January 1778) was a
German woman letter writer.
Life
In 1756, she married the
Hamburg businessman Engelbert König with whom she had four children: Maria Amalie Henneberg, Theodor, Engelbert, and Fritz. In 1767, she became friends with the playwright
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 ...
, godfather to her son Fritz who looked after her when her husband died in 1769.
A few years later, in 1771 they became engaged.
Due to matters related to König's estate, Eva made several visits to
Vienna over a lengthy period. She also had to accompany the young Prince
Leopold of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
Maximilian Julius Leopold of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and nominal Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg (12 October 1752, Wolfenbüttel - 27 April 1785, Frankfurt (Oder)) was a Prussian major general and one of the ...
, a future Prussian General, to Italy in 1775. As a result, the couple's mode of contact during their engagement was through written correspondence, most of which has survived. In 1776 they were married in
Jork
Jork is a small town on the left bank of the Elbe, near Hamburg (Germany).
Jork belongs to the district of Stade, in Lower Saxony. The town is the capital of the Altes Land, one of the biggest fruit growing areas in Europe, and Jork is home to a ...
, a town near Hamburg.
Eva Lessing then moved to
Wolfenbüttel with her husband where she died in 1778 at the age of 41 of
neonatal sepsis soon after the birth of their son Traugott Lessing. She was buried at Bürger Friedhof hinter der Trinitatiskirche, in Wolfenbüttel, Landkreis Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Konig
1736 births
1778 deaths
German letter writers
Women letter writers
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Writers from Heidelberg