Background
The third child of six born to Preben Brahe of Hvedholm, Engelsholm og Østrupgård (1627–1708) and Susanne Gøye (1634-1683) and a relative of Jens Bille, Karen grew up reading, being taught by, amongst others, her mother and grandmother Karen Bille. Karen became an able administrator of her father"s estate, which she ran from her mother"s death until her father himself died. After her father"s death she moved to Østrupgård and became the estate-owner there until her death.
Career
Karen Brahe was an avid letter writer Her surviving letters cover a wide range of topics, from administration to literature to gossip. The library contained around 1000 printed books and 100 manuscripts, and Karen went on to increase lieutenant
On 8 November 1716 she founded the Odense adelige jomfrukloster, a Lutheran collegiate foundation for unmarried noblewomen (now part of Street Catherine"s Priory, Roskilde), which received royal confirmation on March 15, 1717.
She bequeathed to it her library, now known as Karen Brahe"s Library. The books were to belong to the monastery in perpetuity for the use of the young ladies there, but she also opened access to learning for other women.
Her main scholarly interest was theology, which accounts for more than half of her books Another interest was history, primarily Denmark"s, and this makes up about a quarter of the books
The last quarter contains more practical books such as legal collections, medical books, anatomical works, grease-stained cookbooks, and textbooks.
There were also literary texts, which Anne Gøye"s sister Anne Birgitte had collected. Among the famous books held by the library are the ballad-collections Karen Brahes Folio (shelfmark East I,1) and Jens Billes visebog (East I,2). The only manuscript of Leonora Christina Ulfeldt"s Heltinders Pryd (C V,1).
And a rare first edition of Margrethe Lasson"s Den beklædte sandhed.
The library is the only Danish private library from the seventeenth century which is preserved fairly intact to this day. Today it contains around 3,400 printed books, about 400 bound manuscripts, and another 600 or so unbound handwritten documents.
The monastery"s last residents moved out in 1970. In 1987, the Karen Brahe Society was founded with the aim of establishing a women"s cultural center in the monastery buildings, now owned by Odense Municipality.
Personality
She was a diligent scholar.