Sophia Lovisa Charlotte Baden

1740 - 1824

Denmark

Sophia Lovisa Charlotte Baden was born in Copenhagen. Due to her father’s position as first lieutenant, her parents moved to Norway, while she resided with her father’s relative Anne Sophia von den Osten, who was lady-in-waiting to Princess Charlotte Amalie of Denmark. The princess took care of her education and upbringing and introduced her to high society. In 1763, she married the philologist and professor Jacob Baden.

She is principally known for her epistolary novel Den fortsatte Grandison, 1784, which she wrote as a continuation of English novelist Samuel Richardson’s famous epistolary novel The History of Sir Charles Grandison, 1753, a work which so captivated her imagination that she felt inclined to continue the story about the characters. She is also the presumed author of a series of short, genteel stories written with an unfailing sense of style as well as letters which appeared in the periodical Morgenposten published by the bookseller S. Poulsen. She had two sons.