Her parents were Carl Georg August von Oppel [de] and his wife Amalie.

When her father died, her mother remarried, and she was looked after by an uncle and given a good private education.

[3] She left Switzerland in protest at the French invasion of the country and swore never to set foot in it again while it was occupied.

Berlepsch wrote a four volume account titled Caledonia, in German, which described Scotland, including the remote highlands,[4] and discussed women writers publishing in English.

[1] Berlepsch's book Caledonia included early translations and reviews of Robert Burns.

[5] In her writing Berlepsch deals particularly with the subject of women's rights, a topic she first raised in 1791 in a journal article innocuously titled "Some Characteristics and Principles Necessary for Happiness in Marriage," in which she ponders the pervasiveness of misogyny and the costs of women's conventional submissiveness.

[2] Emilie von Berlepsch's published works as cited by An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers.