Elizabeth von Arnim

Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866–1941), known by her pen name Elizabeth von Arnim, was an English writer, novelist, and diarist. Born in Kirribilli, a suburb of Sydney, Mary, nicknamed May, was the youngest of six siblings. From a wealthy family, the little girl left Australia at an early age for London, where she proved to be a brilliant schoolgirl, then student. Attending the Royal College of Music, Mary Annette took classes with the eminent organist Sir Walter Parratt and briefly considered a career as a professional musician. However, her parents, concerned about her future as a wife, sought to find her a suitable match and took her on a journey across Europe. It was there, in 1889 in Rome, that she met Count von Arnim, a member of the Prussian aristocracy, who would become her husband two years later.

This marriage, which distanced her from England, marked the beginning of her writing career and her discovery of a literary dimension inherent to nature. Settled in the heart of Nassenheide Castle in East Prussia, with her husband and children, Mary Annette von Arnim adopted the pseudonym Elizabeth and published her first autobiographical novel, titled Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898). A resounding success, the book was reprinted eleven times, earning the author £10,000, i.e the equivalent of half a million today.

Nonetheless, her most famous novel remains The Enchanted April (1922). Imbued with the style of Jane Austen and a tone that is satirical, the novel opens with an advertisement in The Times: “To those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. Small mediaeval Italian castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, box 1000, The Times.” Building on the historical motif of the Grand Tour (of Italy), a key aspect of the education of Anglo–Saxon aristocrats in the 19th century, von Arnim revisits it through the lens of intimacy, inner renewal, and the feminine. At the same time, the novel draws on a tradition that borders on literary trope, depicting Italy as a place of exclusive beauty and limitless escape, contrasting with the grayness and moral rigidity of post–Victorian England.

Still, with The Enchanted April and its numerous film adaptations, including the 1935 version by Harry Beaumont, the words of Australian biographer Verna Coleman about the young Von Arnim take on meaning: “Talented, musical, small and pretty – definitely a girl from far away, even a girl from nowhere. This was the girl that was to become a tough–minded Prussian aristocrat and dryly comic observer of European and English life.”

This sharp gaze, sometimes tinged with deadpan humor, earned von Arnim some criticism from Irene Forbes–Mosse (1864–1946), a close friend of Vernon Lee. In a letter to her, she wrote: 

“Mary Von Arnim could have done an enormous lot of good with her books, not by preaching, but only if she had been a little tender and understanding. I once said to her ‘My dear, if I wanted to, I could also ridicule English things I saw in England’ – she said ‘Why don’t you?’ ” 

Nevertheless, taking advantage of the German nationality she acquired through marriage, as well as her ability to travel between neutral countries and Germany, Lee and Forbes–Mosse, then respectively in Florence and Munich, made von Arnim their messenger. On August 4, 1914, at the very beginning of World War I, Lee wrote to her friend of enemy nationality: “Dearest – I am sending this to Countess Arnim to post (…) I must be able to hear from you, my dearie. It seems years ago since I heard (from you). Everything seems years ago.”

After the death of her husband in 1910, von Arnim settled in Switzerland, in Montana, where she received letters from Vernon Lee at her chalet Beau Soleil. This role of clandestine courier suited her perfectly, as she continued to write increasingly critical novels about an aging Europe and, especially, the condition of women, which she deemed outdated.

Having briefly associated with writer H.G. Wells and then married Count Francis de Russell, von Arnim did not hesitate to draw from her own romantic experiences to write and subtly undo the mechanisms of marriage. Influenced by her cousin Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth embarked on writing Vera in 1920, a novel that explores themes of psychological manipulation and destructive relationships, which resonates with her marriage to Count de Russell.

Although this union was a complete disaster, it allowed her to acquire British nationality, which proved highly beneficial for the writer, who split her time between London and Montana, in an England then marked by a strong hostility towards anything Germanic distinction. “According to the philosopher and family friend George Santayana – also past visitor of Il Palmerino – her chief motive for marrying an Englishman was to obtain British citizenship. Europe stood on the brink of the First World War, and in London a surname such as von  Arnim was decidedly unwelcome,” notes Gabrielle  Carey, journalist for the Sydney Review of Books. 

The doomed marriage ended three years later. Grief–stricken and like her heroines, von Arnim sought a milder climate and settled to Mas des Roses, a villa she had fitted out in Mougins, in the South of France. However, the threat of war in the 1930s soon drove her to emigrate to the United States, where she struggled to adapt. For the one who was a young woman “from nowhere”, the New World had nothing to do with promises, Italy’s fantasies and enchanted months. 

Elizabeth passed away on February 9, 1941, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Alan B.