Marie Therese Forster (10 August 1786 – 3 June 1862) was a German educator, writer, correspondent and editor.

Born in Vilnius in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to Georg Forster and his wife Therese, she spent her early childhood in Mainz.

Until 1826, she worked as a teacher and educator, first at Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg's school in Hofwil and then for several upper-class families.

Therese Forster, who was called Röse or Röschen ('little rose') as a child,[2] was born in Vilnius as the first child of Georg Forster (1754–1794), who held the Chair of Natural History at Vilnius University, and his wife Therese, the daughter of Göttingen classicist Heyne.

Four days after her birth, her parents wrote to their friend Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, the mother mentioning that she was "only a girl", the father commenting that he did not care until the time when she would become a woman.

[20] Their life in rural Bôle was difficult financially, as there was no fixed income, but both Forster[21] and her mother described this as the happiest time in their lives.

[22] In 1798, Ludwig Ferdinand Huber found employment in Germany again as editor of Johann Friedrich Cotta's newspaper Neueste Weltkunde, which became the Allgemeine Zeitung.

[24] In July 1801, at the age of 15, Forster was sent to live with the family friend, writer Isabelle de Charrière at her Le Pontet mansion in Colombier, in order to obtain the necessary skills for a future employment as a governess.

[25] The arrangement was mutually beneficial, with Forster receiving education and de Charrière enjoying the presence of a young person.

[32] An inquiry by August von Kotzebue for Forster's hand was rejected in 1804,[33] by both mother and daughter,[34] and the potential interest of Johann Gotthard Reinhold [de; nl] was not reciprocated by the "reserved" Therese.

[39] Therese Forster lived with her mother for a while in 1806 until she found a position with Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg at his Hofwil school where she worked from November 1807 to July 1809,[3] succeeding Cécile Wildermeth as educator of the von Fellenberg children and of her half-brother Victor Aimé Huber.

Guided by her brother-in-law Emil von Herder, who assisted her in the review of her father's manuscripts,[55] she asked for an unusually high degree of insight into the sales and promotion.

However, her father's Erinnerungen aus dem Jahr 1790 (Memories from the year 1790) had been written as descriptions of etchings by Daniel Chodowiecki, so Forster and Gervinus insisted on their inclusion.

At a cost to Forster of 250 gulden, she had lithographic reproductions made by Munich-based artist Peter Herwegen [de], printed in 1100 copies each.

[58] Some works were omitted, either because Forster and Gervinus could not find them, as was the case with Georg Forster's essay defending Friedrich Schiller,[59][60] or deliberately like some of the English language letters in the context of A Voyage Round the World and scientific works like the Latin Characteres generum plantarum.

In nine volumes) When her niece Adele von Herder married medical doctor Wilhelm Kuby [de], Forster followed the family to Albisheim and lived with them in Freinsheim for the last few years of her life.