Anna Louisa Karsch, called "die Karschin" and "die deutsche Sappho" (the German Sappho) by her contemporaries, received international acclaim during her lifetime and was viewed as a social and intellectual phenomenon. Born near Schwiebus, Silesia, on 1 December 1722, the daughter of the peasant and pubkeeper Christian Dürbach, she received no formal education and lived in poverty first with her parents, then in two successive marriages. Her inquisitive mind, a quick and sometimes caustic wit, and the unusual gift of being able to create poems extemporaneously on virtually any subject proposed to her helped to make her so famous that in 1785 a marble monument was erected depicting her, in Greek attire and with lyre in hand, as "Die deutsche Sappho." At the height of her career she dined with nobles, kings, and princes as the first German woman to earn her livelihood as poet. Frederick II summoned her...