Dora Duncker

Duncker was born in Berlin, a child of the publisher and book dealer Alexander Duncker, grandchild of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Duncker, and part of a larger dynasty well established in several branches of the book trade. She was educated by private tutors. She also undertook significant "study trips" through Austria—notably in the Tirol, Northern Italy and Switzerland. She also became acquainted with the artist Karl von Piloty. Both at her family home in Berlin, and at von Piloty's home in Munich, she became part of a wider network of the arts and literature establishment that included the artists Hans Makart and Franz von Lenbach along with the writer, Paul Heyse.^[1]

Her first published work, the drama Sphinx, appeared in 1881. In 1887, then annually for the next ten years, she produced the children's calendar, Buntes Jahr.^[2] In 1888 she married. The marriage was quickly followed by separation and then ended in divorce, however it also resulted in the birth of a daughter. Dora Duncker and her daughter Eva then lived together in Berlin. Following the collapse of her marriage Dora Duncker supported herself as a prolific freelance author and contributing editor.^[1]