The daughter of a famous composer and a respected actress, trained as a painter but becoming a successful writer, Helene Raff grew up and flourished in the liberal, cultured artistic milieu of 19th century Germany, which was eventually swept away by the catastrophe of the First World War. Boasting a dazzling array of famous characters such as Liszt, Ibsen and "mad" King Ludwig II, her lively but unsentimental autobiography teems with the once-famous writers, sculptors, musicians, actors and painters in her circle and ends with a chilling account of the collapse of Germany in 1918. In a masterful translation by Alan Howe, Helene Raff's story is revealed as an entertaining and valuable document which sheds fresh light on a now almost entirely forgotten era.