This collection of essays centers on women writers who negotiated, interrogated, and challenged the gender ideology of separate spheres through their advocacy and representations of female Bildung. The term Bildung encompasses an individual's entire moral, spiritual, behavioral, emotional, political and intellectual development. The contributors analyze works of fiction, memoirs, autobiographies, letters, the periodical press, and conduct and cookbooks from the mid-1700s to circa 1900 that confront the separate spheres paradigm and promote women's educational and personal development. They examine women's writing and reading practices, moral and gender philosophies, political activism, and work from the home to the stage and factory. Most writers did not repudiate outright existing gender models, but both subtly and overtly subverted and reinterpreted them. In all the texts, the process of female education leads to an assertion of agency. The writers came from different social classes and professional backgrounds, ranging from noblewomen to working-class autobiographers of the later nineteenth century. This volume will be of interest to German cultural, literary, and historical scholars, as well as to those concerned with the development of European feminism, women's education and autobiography. This collection of essays centers on women writers who negotiated, interrogated, and challenged the gender ideology of separate spheres through their advocacy and representations of female Bildung. The term Bildung encompasses an individual's entire moral, spiritual, behavioral, emotional, political and intellectual development. The contributors analyze works of fiction, memoirs, autobiographies, letters, the periodical press, and conduct and cookbooks from the mid-1700s to circa 1900 that confront the separate spheres paradigm and promote women's educational and personal development. They examine women's writing and reading practices, moral and gender philosophies, political activism, and work from the home to the stage and factory. Most writers did not repudiate outright existing gender models, but both subtly and overtly subverted and reinterpreted them. In all the texts, the process of female education leads to an assertion of agency. The writers came from different social classes and professional backgrounds, ranging from noblewomen to working-class autobiographers of the later nineteenth century. This volume will be of interest to German cultural, literary, and historical scholars, as well as to those concerned with the development of European feminism, women's education and autobiography. Acknowledgements and Permissions 9(2) Challenging Separate Spheres: Female Bildung in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Germany -- An Introduction 11(22) Marjanne E. Gooze I. Moral Life and Education Marianne Ehrmann's Ein Weib ein Wort -- A Platform for Moral Education 33(18) Anca L. Holden Memories and Fantasies: Sophie La Roche's Herbsttage 51(22) Helga Schutte Watt II. Bildung through Reading and Reinterpretation Die neuen Volksmarchen der Deutschen: A New Twist on an Old Plot? The Rubezahl Legend in Benedikte Naubert and Johann Karl August Musaus 73(20) Laura Martin The Voice of the schone Seele: Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Pauline Wiesel as Readers of Weimar Classicism 93(16) Laura Deiulio ``Was sollen unsre Tochter lesen?'' Recommended Reading and Literary Bildung in the Women's Periodical Press 109(28) Denise M. Della Rossa III. Writing Lives into the Public Sphere The Bat at the Ball: Bourgeois Culture as a Written Practice in the Letters of Magdalena Pauli to Johanna Sieveking, 1786--1824 137(20) Tamara M. Zwick ``La? mich sein, was ich bin'': Karoline Schulze-Kummerfeld's Performance of a Lifetime 157(34) Wendy Arons ``Wer die Frauen hat, der hat die Zukunft!'' Women's Voices on the Revolutions of 1848-49: Fanny Lewald, Malwida von Meysenbug, and Johanna Kinkel 191(20) Debbie Pinfold ``Was sind wir Dienstboten doch fur elende Geschopfe!'' Female Working-Class Agency in Two German Autobiographies at the Turn of the Century 211(24) Birgit A. Jensen IV. Challenging Gender Ideologies Abortive Bildung: Women Writers, Male Bonds, and Would-Be Fathers 235(26) Elisabeth Krimmer Rezept zur Sittlichkeit: The Conduct Books of Henriette Davidis 261(18) Alicia L. Carter Reproduktion und Bildung in Kultur und Wissenschaft um 1900 279(28) Christine Kanz Notes on Contributors 307(4) Index of Persons 311