The Danish writer Isak Dinesen was born Christentze Dinesen on April 17, 1885, in Rungsted, Denmark. Throughout her life, she was also known as Karen Christentze (or Christence) Dinesen, Karen Christentze Dinesen Blixen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke, Osceola, Pierre Andrezel, Tania B., Karen Blixen, and Tania Blixen, as well as Isak Dinesen, the name by which she is best known to English-language readers. Dinesen suffered tragedy early in life—at the age of ten—when her father, an army officer, hung himself. Dinesen received an education through private tutoring as a child, later studying English at Oxford University (1904) and painting at the Royal Academies in Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome (1910). Dinesen eventually dropped out of the academy and began writing.

A failed love affair with her cousin, Hans Blixen-Finecke, left her deeply depressed, and in 1914 she married Hans' twin brother, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, with whom she moved to British...