Artists

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Russia, he wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States and beginning to write in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945, but he and his wife returned to Europe in 1961, settling in Montreux, Switzerland.
Nabokov's Lolita (1955) was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels in 2007; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list; and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on publisher Random House's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was a seven-time finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Shaw was born in Dublin and initially worked as a commercial clerk before moving to London to gain a foothold as a music and theater critic and then to write himself. Various people had a significant influence on him - such as Shelley, whose works made Shaw a vegetarian, and Marx, whose "Capital" he declared the turning point of his career. He shares with Bob Dylan the distinction of being the first Briton to win both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (best screenplay for the film adaptation of Pygmalion). Shaw was a guest in Bad Kissingen in 1912. He arrived from London on August 4 with his wife and waitress, along with the writer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Hugh Cholmondeley. The poet had only accompanied the two sisters and was here correcting the first proofs of his Pygmalion. On August 9, he wrote, among other things: "I also drank of the water - a sip only, and that was enough for me for the rest of my life."

Max Liebermann was born in Berlin, trained in Weimar, spent time in Paris and the Netherlands, and initially created naturalistic works. He was president and honorary president of the Prussian Academy of Arts and is today considered one of the most important representatives of German Impressionism. He courted the "beautiful Miss Martha Markwald" in Bad Kissingen in July 1884 and presented her with a large bouquet of flowers every morning on the fountain promenade, as the later art critic Max Osborn reported. Martha Marckwald and her mother had stayed with family and waitress at the Grand Hotel garni, the later Haus Collard. Max Liebermann and Martha Markwald then married in September 1884 and later lived in Berlin Wannsee. He died in 1946, she after an overdose of Veronal shortly before deportation to Theresienstadt in 1943.

Born in Seesen in the Harz Mountains, Charles (Carl) was sent to the United States by his parents in 1848 to explore local economic opportunities because of the unrest in Germany. A year later, the family emigrated and after working for various piano manufacturers, Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853. Here Charles and his brother William were heavily involved along with their father. Long afflicted with health problems, particularly respiratory, Steinway traveled to Europe in July 1864 and took a cure with his wife in Bad Kissingen, listed as a "German-American piano manufacturer." Charles Steinway and his wife remained in Germany despite pleas from family to return; a return trip to the U.S. was out of the question due to existing health problems. He died of typhoid fever in Braunschweig in 1865. His body was finally transferred to the USA a year later and he was buried there.