Laura Gonzenbach

Laura Gonzenbach (1842–1878) was a fairy-tale collector of Swiss-German origins, active in Sicily, who collected fairy tales told orally in the local dialects.

Gonzenbach was born in a Swiss-German community based in Messina, to a German-speaking mercantile family. Her sister, Magdalena, founded the first school for girls in Messina, the Istituto Gonzenbach. Her important work as a folklorist was thoroughly researched by Luisa Rubini in Fiabe e mercanti in Sicilia. La raccolta di Laura Gonzenbach. La comunità di lingua tedesca a Messina nell’Ottocento (1998).[1] Gonzenbach was a scrupulous avant-garde scholar of popular traditions.[2] She was well educated, mastered several languages and became well known for the Sicilian fairy tales she gathered mainly from female informants.[3] After the prompting of Otto Hartwig for material to append to a historical survey of the country,[4] she produced what would become an important two-volume collection, Sicilianische Märchen (Sicilian folk-tales), published in 1870.[5][6] Her seminal anthology contained tales told verbally by peasants and other members of the working classes; the assemblage is one of the few major collections of the nineteenth century to be compiled by a woman.[3]