Fiction Books

First published in 1904, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen is a travel journal written in the same style as the author's other autobiographical works Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer. Elizabeth's a goal is to ride her coach around Rügen, Germany's largest island and a...

I read In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim in the place where it is set: the mountains of Switzerland. I hadn’t realized at the time that it was set in Switzerland – I was reading it on my e-reader so there was no jacket blurb to remind me – but it was wonderful to begin the book on my...

This enchanting novel tells the story of the love affair between Rose-Marie Schmidt and Roger Anstruther. A determined young woman of twenty-five, Rose-Marie is considered a spinster by the inhabitants of the small German town of Jena where she lives with her father, the Professor. To their homes...

Enchanted April (1992) is a film adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel, The Enchanted April. The film was directed by Mike Newell. The novel was previously adapted as a Broadway play by Kane Campbell in 1925, and as an RKO Radio film in 1935. A new, Tony Award-nominated stage adaptation...

I was delighted by The Pastor’s Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim, the second book I read as part of Rachel and Carolyn‘s Virago Reading Week. In the hands of any other writer, anyone who lacks von Arnim’s light touch and gift for clever humor, this would have been a tiresome tragedy about a...

I think I will always remember The Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight by Elizabeth von Arnim as the book that made me want to get an e-reader. Just knowing it was out there and available for free was too tempting. A humorous fairy tale-like story from my beloved Elizabeth von Arnim? I had to...

The Solitary Summer is a partially autobiographical novel first published in 1899. It’s an account of a summer spent in the country, away from the social world in which a woman of Elizabeth Von Arnim’s social stance was supposed to move. It’s also a companion to Von Arnim’s more famous...

Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim is a black comedy based on her disastrous second marriage to Earl Russell: a mordant analysis of the romantic delusions through which wives acquiesce in husbands' tyrannies. In outline the story of this utterly unromantic novel anticipates DuMaurier's Rebecca. Naive...

Christine is purportedly a compilation of letters from a "gifted young English girl studying in Germany just before the outbreak of the war" (Charms 188) to her mother in Britain. Written by Elizabeth von Arnim and presented under her anonymous pen-name Alice Cholmondeley, the work dated from May...

In Almost Famous Town lived Beau Braithewaite. In his dreams he was a black leather jacket wearing, cigarette smoking, Rebel motorcycle riding, undefeated street-fighter. In reality, he was just a zero — without future or friend — playing the lead role in the loneliest movie never made But...