Princess Der Ling

Born Lizzie Yu Der Ling, she is best known as the writer who served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Dowager Cixi in the final years of the Qing dynasty. The daughter of a diplomat, she grew up in a cosmopolitan family and became known for moving comfortably between Chinese and Western worlds.

After her time at court, she wrote in English about her experiences, most famously in Two Years in the Forbidden City. Her books blended firsthand observation, storytelling, and cultural explanation, giving many readers outside China one of their earliest lively portraits of palace life.

Her life has continued to fascinate biographers because it crossed borders in every sense: language, politics, performance, and identity. Whether read as memoir, history, or self-fashioning, her work remains an unusual window into a disappearing imperial world.