Franziska zu Reventlow, a radiant center of the Munich Bohemia around the turn of the twentieth century, narrates in her first novel, published in 1903, a lightly veiled account of her childhood in Husum Castle and her youth in Lübeck, leading up to her early years in Munich and the birth of her son. A significant portion of the narrative focuses on her conflicts with her conservative mother and her struggles with the burdens of the old noble lineage from which she descends. Interspersed throughout the novel are letters to her childhood friend Emanuel Fehling and passages from her diaries, often almost verbatim. This unique biographical novel offers insights into the feelings and mindset of a rebellious youth at the end of the nineteenth century from a female perspective.