Elpis Melena
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Elpis Melena (born Marie Espérance von Schwartz; 1818–1899) was a German writer.


Life and career

Daughter of a Hamburg banker, she was born in England and spent much of her early life in Italy and England. She was well known in connection with the movement for Italian unification, Italian unity and freedom and edited the first version of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Garibaldi's memoirs in German, published in English in 1887. After first meeting Garibaldi on the island of Caprera in 1857 she received affectionate letters from him and an ultimately unsuccessful proposal of marriage in 1858. After 1865 she lived in Chania. She took interest in animal welfare and criticized animal testing. In 1875, she read a German translation of George Fleming (veterinary surgeon), George Fleming's vivisection essay which inspired her anti-vivisection novel ''Gemma, oder Tugend und Laster'' (translated as ''Gemma, or Virtue and Vice''). Melena's novel has been described as "mobilizing public opinion against vivisection in Germany".


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melena, Elpis 1899 deaths 1818 births German expatriates in the United Kingdom German expatriates in Italy 19th-century German writers 19th-century women writers German anti-vivisectionists German philhellenes German women writers