The History of Lady Sophia Sternheim: SUNY series, Women Writers in Translation

Sophie von LaRoche is credited with being the first German female novelist and author of the first German "woman's novel." The History of Lady Sophia Sternheim is the first German Bildungsroman with a female protaganist, the first full-fledged German epistolary novel, and the first German sentimental novel. Its autobiographical aspects, incorporating thinly disguised vignettes of Wieland, Goethe, and other great figures of the day, give the work an unmistakably true-to-life flavor and immediacy.