Negotiating the public sphere through private correspondence: A woman's letters of liberty in eighteenth-century Germany

The pivotal role played by letters in eighteenth-century German literary, c ultural and everyday life has long been recognised. In contrast to earlier times, many of the letters written in the eighteenth century were composed by women, and their correspondence provides modern scholars with a rich sou rce of information about the process of communication in the intimate, priv ate and public spheres. The limited correspondence of Charlotte von Hezel, the first woman in Germany to edit a periodical under her own name, is of p articular interest because it offers one of the few examples of a woman cor responding with men for professional, not personal reasons. In addition, He zel, not her male correspondents, represents the voice of authority within the area of activity being discussed: the publication of her magazine. Heze ls self-assurance is remarkable for a German woman of the time, and her let ters demonstrate a liberating process of communication that allowed individ uals hindered by gender, educational background or social status to debate contemporary issues and exchange serviced as they negotiated their entry in to the public sphere.