WHEN THE NOVEL Agnes von Lilien was first published in 1796, it appeared anonymously, meaning that both the identity of its auth or, Caroline von Wolzogen, and her gender were hidden from the text's contemporary readers. Written by an author without a name, it consequently entered the public sphere like an illegitimate child; that is, like a human being whose biological progenitors did not acknowledge its birth and their relationship legally. There are interesting parallels between anonymous publication and so-called illegitimate children. Both are fraught with questions of self-identity and change in social status and both are frequently accompanied by discourses of secrecy, disowning, discovery, revealing, and, perhaps, acknowledging. Further, the status of the biological parent, much like that of an author, may have a significant impact on the child's or the novel's reception: if the parent/author is a young, unmarried woman, the child/novel will be disadvantaged or, perhaps, sensationalized.

Yet books are only figuratively like children, and many writers around 1800 were apt to publish their fiction without putting their names in the front matter. This includes novels from other national literatures that now enjoy canonical status. For example, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) were also first published anonymously, while George Sand and George Eliot are male pseudonyms used by two women writers after 1800: Amantine Aurore Dupin (1804– 76) and Mary Ann Evans (1819–80). Although publishing without acknowledging authorship was not an uncommon strategy at the time, anonymity remains a special concern with German-language novels, since copyright laws were weak, and worries about censorship in certain German lands and dukedoms persisted. Given this multifactorial history, German women writers may have remained unknown even longer than their British and French counterparts and certainly more than canonical male authors.1 An anonymously published novel shares with an illegitimate child the mystery of origin, the chagrin of illegitimacy as it is received or grows up, and, often, the hope to overcome stigma and find acceptance.