With her stories, aphorisms, and especially the novel "The Community Child," the Austrian poetess Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach has made her mark in literary history. The narrative explores how a child of convicted parents, forced into the margins of society, struggles to assert themselves and works their way out of misery. This is the social theme of the story by a highly noble author who sheds light on the situation of the rural lower class in the second half of the 19th century.