A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Reiske, Ernestine Christine
REISKE, ERNESTINE CHRISTINE,
Whose maiden name was Müller, was the wife of Johann Jacob Reiske. She was born, April 2nd., 1735, at Kumberg, a small town near Wittemberg, in Prussian Saxony. In 1755, she became acquainted with Reiske at Leipzic, where she was making a visit. Her beauty, modesty, goodness, and love of literature, attracted the eminent scholar, and, although he was twenty years her senior, they became very much attached to each other; but, owing to the war then raging in Saxony, they were not married till 1764. In order to help her husband in his literary labours, Christine acquired under his instructions a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, which rendered her of the greatest assistance to him. She copied and collated his manuscripts, arranged the various readings that he had collected, and read and corrected the proof-sheets of his works. Her attachment for him and her respect for his memory are strongly shown in the supplement to his autobiography, which she completed from the 1st. of January, 1770, till his death on the 14th. of August, 1744. The gratitude of Reiske, and the ardour of his affection, are not less strongly expressed, both in the autobiography just mentioned and in the prefaces to some of his works. After the death of Reiske, his wife published several works that he had left unfinished, and also two works of her own, one called "Hellas," in 1778; and the other entitled "Zur Moral: aus dem Griechischen ubersatzt von E. C. Reiske;" a work containing translations from the Greek to the German. After her husband's death, she lived successively at Leipzic, Dresden, and Brunswick; and died at Kamberg, July 27th., 1798, aged sixty-three.