Mathilde Schjøtt anonymously published Venindernes Samtale om Kvindernes Underkuelse, 1871, was the daughter of Government Legal Adviser Bernhard Dunker, who belonged to the inner liberal circle in Christiania. She was qualified as a governess, lived for long periods in Copenhagen, and studied languages in Brussels and Paris.
She was the co-founder of Norsk Kvinnesaksforening (Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights) and a member of its first committee, wrote literary criticism for the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet and in the radical periodical Nyt Tidsskrift, and worked for some time as sub-editor and literary adviser to Ernst Sars on Nyt Tidsskrift. In 1904, she compiled her reviews of the writer Alexander Kielland’s novels into a book.
She also wrote a portrait of Camilla Collett in Nordmænd i det 19. århundrede and published a number of short stories and theatre plays under a pseudonym. She was married to Peter Olrog Schjøtt, professor of Greek, and for many years held a monthly literary salon.
