Margarete Böhme (8 May 1867 – 23 May 1939) was, arguably, one of the most widely read German writers of the early 20th century. Böhme authored 40 novels – as well as short stories, autobiographical sketches, and articles. The Diary of a Lost Girl, first published in 1905 as Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, is her best known and bestselling book. By the end of the 1920s, it had sold more than a million copies, ranking it among the bestselling books of its time. One contemporary scholar has called it “Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century.” Early life and work Böhme was born Wilhelmina Margarete Susanna Feddersen in 1867. The future writer grew up in Husum, a small town in Northern Germany. Husum was dubbed “the grey town by the grey sea” by its best known resident, the novelist and poet Theodor Storm. Her mother's aunt was Lena Wies, a storyteller and longtime friend of Storm who furnished the novelist with legends and tales for his later work. Böhme began writing early. At age 17, she published her first story, “The Secret of the Rose Passage,” in a Hamburg newspaper. She then went on to place her work in weekly magazines, both under her own name and under the pseudonym, Ormanos Sandor. Later, while living in Hamburg and Vienna, Böhme worked as a correspondent for North German and Austrian newspapers. In 1894, the author married Friedrich Theodor Böhme, a newspaper publisher 20 years her senior. After six years, the marriage ended in divorce. Böhme then moved to Berlin, where she attempted to make her living as an author. Böhme wrote prolifically. She wrote articles and essays as well as short stories for the newspapers and magazines of the time. Some of her early novels were serialized in periodicals, and others were issued in book form by German publishers. At first, Böhme wrote what would today be termed popular fiction – but as her work matured, she turned to more serious themes. Beginning in 1903, Böhme wrote six novels in the span of two years. Few of them, however, met with much success. With the publication of Tagebuch einer Verlorenen in 1905, the author's fortunes changed. The book was an overnight success, and Böhme's reputation was secured. Her succeeding books were met with serious consideration, translated into other languages, and widely reviewed.