Princess Der Ling was born in 1885, the daughter of Lord Yu Keng who served as Chinese minister to Japan and then as minister to France for four years from 1899. She received a Western education in Paris and in 1903 at the age of 18, entered the palace as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Dowager, acting as her interpreter and helper. She left the palace in March 1905 to be with her father, who died in Shanghai that year. She married an American named Thaddeus White in 1907, published this book in 1911 and died in the United States in 1944.