Aus den Memoiren einer Sängerin
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Aus den Memoiren einer Sängerin (Pauline: memoirs of a singer, or Promiscuous Pauline; or, The Memoirs of a German Opera Singer) (Stuttgart: Franck, 1829) is an anonymously published fictionalized biography of the opera singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient.
After Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient's death a two volume work entitled Aus den Memoiren einer Saengerin, purporting to be her erotic memoirs, was published in two parts in 1868 and 1875. The first volume is a plausible account of her sex life, though various discrepencies with known facts have led many to doubt its complete veracity. The erotic adventures contained in the second volume, however seem to descend into complete sexual fantasy. These include the authoress indulging in lesbian sadomasochism, group sex, sodomy, bestiality, scatology, necrophilia, prostitution and vampirism: all before she had reached the age of 27. Whether true or not, this work is Germany's most famous work of erotic literature, many times reprinted, and translated into English as Pauline the Prima Donna.