Background
Ida Cornelia Ernestina Editor was born in Bergedorf in 1852 to a supportive family who encouraged her to write. Her father had started his own newspaper business.
Ida Cornelia Ernestina Editor was born in Bergedorf in 1852 to a supportive family who encouraged her to write. Her father had started his own newspaper business.
A supporter of women"s issues, she wrote widely-read books and newspaper articles Over her husband"s objections in 1878, she moved out of the house she shared with his family. Despite already being a published author of serialised novels and having experience in newspaper writing, she did not find success with the pieces she wrote at this time.
She did, however, use her money to assist other artists.
In 1880, she was obliged to move back to Lübeck at her husband"s insistence as their divorce was not finalized. A book of her novellas about the Hanseatic middle classes was the first of about 70 that she published.
Boy studied and wrote about leading German women like Charlotte von Stein, Charlotte von Kalb and the French writer Germaine de Staël. Like them, she tried to support women"s issues in her writings although her principal reason for writing was to make money.
Editor invested in an impressive apartment and was a patron of the arts
In September 1914, at the outset of the First World War, Boy"s son Walther was killed in France. Undeterred, Boy wrote of the need for a mother"s sacrifice. She published her ideas in 1915 under the title Soldiers" Mothers in which she makes it clear, "A mother is only dust on the road to victory".
Boy"s other son, Karl, was the naval attaché of the German Embassy at Washington.
Karl recalled that Thomas Mann was amongst the many literary and musical people who visited his mother"s home. Boy died in 1928 in Travemünde and was buried in Lübeck.