![]() ![]() ![]() In publishing anonymously Elizabeth (as I think we’re going to call her) was not terribly unusual. Her real name was Mary Annette Beauchamp, and after her marriage, Mary von Arnim. After her first, anonymous, success Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898) her novels were credited ‘by the author of “Elizabeth and her German Garden”‘. ![]() Though we now know her as ‘Elizabeth von Arnim’, in her lifetime she never published under this name. I hope these books encourage many more people to read von Arnim and to appreciate what an exceptional writer she was. My book Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor, then Isobel Maddison’s Elizabeth von Arnim: Beyond the German Garden, and finally Jennifer Walker’s Elizabeth of the German Garden: A Literary Journey. ![]() This is looking like a very good year for von Arnim: there are three books about her out this year. I might as well lay my cards on the table and say that she is one of my favourite novelists! I was delighted when we received a donation of many first and early editions of her novels, giving me an excuse for a von Arnim themed reading group. This month one of our reading groups is reading Elizabeth von Arnim novels. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |