Dorothea Friederike von Schlegel (; 24 October 1764 – 3 August 1839) was a German novelist and translator.
Life
She was born as Brendel Mendelssohn in 1764 in Berlin. Oldest daughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, a leading figure in the German Enlightenment (Aufklärung). In 1783 she married the merchant and banker Simon Veit, brother of the physician David Veit. Their son, Philipp Veit, would later become part of a circle of German Christian painters called "the Nazarenes," who influenced the English painters in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She met the poet and critic Friedrich von Schlegel in the salon of her friend Henriette Herz in July 1797, after which Dorothea divorced Simon on 11 January 1799.
She obtained custody of her younger son, Philipp, and lived with him in an apartment on Ziegelstraße in Jena, which became a salon frequented by Tieck, Schelling, the Schlegel brothers, and Novalis.
In 1801 her novel Florentin was published anonymously by Schlegel. Dorothea and Friedrich lived in Paris from 1802 until 1804, and after her divorce they married as Protestants. In 1807 she translated Corinne by Madame de Staël from French.
