Karolina Světlá, the pseudonym of Johana Nepomucena Mužáková née Rottová, was born in Prague on February 24, 1830. The Czech part of her childhood ended when she began attending a German school and lost the ability to write in Czech. Her escape into the world of literary creation began when she was twelve and wrote her first almanac. It was entitled Sounds of the Lute [Lautenklänge] and was written in German. Her teacher however discouraged her from writing and recommended her parents withhold her from further education. Instead, she should occupy herself with domestic work and prepare for the expected role of a housewife. Petr Mužák (1821–1892) who was from the Bohemian Podještědí, taught music at the Rott family’s house and gradually opened Johana a path back to the Czech language. They were married on 7 January 1852. When their three month-old daughter died, Johana had a nervous breakdown. On the recommendation of her doctor, she began to focus on her mental creativity and her first literary text, the story A Double Awakening [Dvojí probuzení], was published in the almanac of contemporary Czech authors, May [Máj, 1858]. The text was not signed Johana Mužáková, but for the first time Karolina Světlá: Světlá according to the name of the village, and Karolina after her niece from Světlá, who was born in the same year as her daughter. In the photographs you can see Světlá’s birthplace in Prague, the parents of Světlá, the parents of Mužák, and Světlá when she was eighteen years-old in a festive dress at a ball on the occasion of a Slavonic convention.