1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Suttner, Bertha, Baroness von

SUTTNER, BERTHA, Baroness von (1843-⁠), Austrian writer, was born at Prague on the 9th of July 1843, the daughter of Count Franz Kinsky, Austrian field marshal, who died shortly after her birth. On her mother's side she was descended from the family of the German poet, Theodor Körner. After receiving a careful education she travelled abroad and resided for a long period in Paris and in Italy. In 1876 she married the novelist, Freiherr Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner (1850-1902), and for the next nine years lived with him at Tiflis in the Caucasus. After 1885 she resided at Schloss Harmansdorf, near Eggenburg, in Lower Austria. The Baroness von Suttner, a fertile writer, has produced numerous tales, books on social science and romances, among which the best known are Inventarium einer Seele (1882), Die Waffen nieder (1889), Hanna (1894), La Traviata (1898), Schach der Qual (1898), Martha's Kinder (1903), a continuation of Die Waffen nieder. She was at one time secretary to Alfred Nobel, and as a champion of the “brotherhood of nations,” had much influence on him and others; and in this connexion has published Krieg und Frieden (1896), Das Maschinen-Zeitalter, Zukunfts-Vorlesungen über unsere Zeit (1899) and Die Haager Friedenskonferenz (1900). In 1905 she was awarded a Nobel prize of £5000 for her endeavours in the cause of peace.

Her Memoiren, full of interesting autobiographical matter, were published at Stuttgart in 1908.