Caroline de la Motte Fouqué was the most successful woman writer of her time in Germany, publishing over one hundred works in twenty-five years. Among these works were twenty novels, sixty novellas or short stories, and twenty-one nonfiction pieces on cultural history for women. She also worked with her husband in editorial ventures.

Caroline Philippine von Briest was born on 7 October 1774 at Schloß Nennhausen, a mansion on an island in the Havel River in western Brandenburg, to Friedrich Wilhelm August and Caroline von Zinnow von Briest. The cultural tone at Nennhausen was set by her father, a politically active country gentleman with a good education along philosophical lines. Her early schooling was in the hands of a French governess with spiritual and intellectual interests. Caroline's childhood recollections contrasted the old-fashioned simple black or gray attire of her serious governess with the elaborate dress and elegant coiffure...