Leonora Christina Ulfeldt is regarded as the finest Danish prose writer of the seventeenth century. Her masterpiece is her prison memoir Jammers Minde (Memory of Woe, 1869; translated as "A Record of the Sufferings of the Imprisoned Countess," 1872). The work ranges in style from the polished and formal rhetoric of the baroque to an almost colloquial and sensually permeated Danish. The realistic depictions of prison life, combined with the narrator's imposing personality, have made Jammers Minde a popular classic work.

Leonora Christina's dramatic fate has continued to ensure her a place in Danish history books, but it took many years for her contribution as an author to be acknowledged. She published nothing during her lifetime, and many of her works are known only referentially. Not until 1869, with the publication of Jammers Minde, was her literary genius recognized. An autobiography written in French that has decisively colored the general perception...