Bussy dedicated it "to the very dear memory of Virginia W." Set in the late 19th century at a finishing school in France, the plot dramatizes the passion of a young English boarding student for one of her French teachers, Mlle Julie, whose character owes much to Marie Souvestre.

[3] The novel caused a scandal when it first appeared, even though it belongs to an already well-established tradition, from Claudine à l'école by Colette (1900) to the film Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform) (1931), based on the play by Christa Winsloe.

In their correspondence, Gide and Bussy did not fail to mention Mädchen in Uniform, the cinematic version of which had already been shown in Paris during the interwar period.

In 1934 after this discussion Bussy sent the text, which she had been writing since the year before, to her close friend André Gide to ask his opinion.

[6] The first French edition, published by Stock in 1949, benefited from a foreword by Rosamond Lehmann, who was also close to Leonard Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.