Elpis Melena

Elpis Melena (1818–1899, born as Marie Espérance von Schwartz) was an Anglo-German writer who published under the name of Elpis Melena.

Daughter of a Hamburg banker, she was born in England and spent much of her early life in Italy and England. She was well known in connection with the movement for Italian unity and freedom and edited the first version of Garibaldi's memoirs in German, published in English in 1887. After first meeting Garibaldi on the island of Caprera in 1857 she received affectionate letters from him and an ultimately unsuccessful proposal of marriage in 1858. After 1865 she lived in Chania. She was active in the animal protection movement and one of the first to criticize animal testing.