Johanna Schopenhauer is known to literary history as the author of travelogues that remain of interest as lively portrayals of early nineteenth-century life in Great Britain and France. She also played an important role as a salonière in Weimar and as a friend of Goethe. As the author of several romantic novels she explored the experience of young women who found themselves coerced into unwanted marriages. Finally, she was the mother of the important philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and her relationship with him is of some note.

Johanna Henrietta Trosiener, the daughter of Christian Heinrich Trosiener, a wealthy merchant, was born in Danzig (today Gdansk, Poland) on 9 July 1766. Her native language was German, though she learned Polish from the family servants. In 1785 she married another substantial merchant, Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer. The couple moved to Hamburg in 1793, just as Danzig was being annexed by Prussia.

The Schopenhauers had...