Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach stands out as one of the most unusual Austrian writers of the latter part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Known as the grande dame of Austrian literature, she started her writing career as a dramatist who had the ambition of becoming a female Shakespeare. She ended it as an aphorist and author of short stories, novellas, and novels. Although she was not a leading figure in the women's movement of the turn of the century, her writings, which were much acclaimed in her maturing years, went a long way toward putting women's literature on an equal footing with the literary output of her male peers in her own native land and abroad.