The effort to sharpen the mind, to think clearly and thoroughly, cannot be detrimental to the performance of domestic duties. Indeed, a learned woman is all the more skilled at fulfilling the responsibilities of a good housekeeper and wife the more educated she is. Who today can fathom the explosive significance these words held for the time in which they were written? Yet their author, Dorothea Christiane Erxleben, did not stop at words. Far from being a stuffy blue-stocking, the beautiful woman from Quedlinburg became the first woman in Germany to earn a doctorate in 1754. The physician, mother, and pastor's wife lived her triple calling to the fullest. Let yourself be touched by the vibrant interplay of colors in a life portrait that reflects the light and shadow, tragedy and triumphs of an era of great upheaval.