Fredrika Bremer

Born in Finland in 1801, Bremer grew up in Sweden and began writing domestic fiction that brought everyday middle-class life into focus with a precision that earned her comparisons to Austen. Her Sketches of Everyday Life became international bestsellers in the 1840s and 1850s, widely read in Britain and America. In her late 30s she petitioned King Charles XIV to release her from her brother's wardship and won. Two decades later, in her 50s, she published Hertha, a novel so pointed that it sparked a movement - Sweden granted legal majority to unmarried women at 25 and opened its first women's college. The book also moved Sophie Adlersparre to launch the Home Review, the country's first magazine for women, and a later journal took Hertha's name. She died in 1865; nearly twenty years later, Sweden's first organized women's rights group named itself after her.