Victoria Benedictsson

Victoria Benedictsson (6 March 1850 in Domme – 22 July 1888) was a Swedish author. She was born as Victoria Maria Bruzelius in Domme, a village in the province of Skåne. She wrote under the pen name Ernst Ahlgren. Notable works include Pengar (1885) and Fru Marianne (1887).

Biography
Benedictsson grew up on a farm in Sweden. At 21 she married a 49-year-old widower from Hörby (with whom she had two daughters). After an illness left her bed-bound, Benedictsson turned to writing, publishing her first collection of stories, Från Skåne, in 1884. She is, together with August Strindberg, regarded as one of the greatest proponents of the Swedish realist writing style. In her novels she described the inequality of marriage and often debated women's rights issues in her writings. Current critics see her as an early feminist; earlier the focus was on her love affair with Danish literature critic Georg Brandes. She also wrote plays, one of which, entitled I Telefon (Swedish: On Telephone), was highly successful, being performed 27 times at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. The play was serialized in Familie Journalen in 1887.

She committed suicide in room No. 17 in Leopold's Hotel on Hovedvagtsgade – near Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. She is buried in the city's Western Cemetery.