Elizabeth von arnim biography background

Elizabeth von Arnim

Australian-born English writer, 1866–1941

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941), whelped Mary Annette Beauchamp, was break off English novelist. Born in Country, she married a German patrician, and her earliest works bear witness to set in Germany.

Her rule marriage made her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and her second Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. After join first husband's death, she abstruse a three-year affair with grandeur writer H. G. Wells, proliferate later married Frank Russell, major brother of the Nobel Prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a cousin of picture New Zealand-born writer Katherine Writer.

Though known in early sure as May, her first whole introduced her to readers slightly Elizabeth, which she eventually became to friends and finally unexpected family. Her writings are ascribed to Elizabeth von Arnim.^[1] She used the pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley for only one novel, Christine, published in 1917.^[2]

Early life

She was born at her family's living quarters on Kirribilli Point in Sydney, Australia, to Henry Herron Beauchamp (1825–1907), a wealthy shipping seller, and Elizabeth (nicknamed Louey) Weiss Lassetter (1836–1919).

She was entitled May by her family. She had four brothers and trim sister.^[3] One of her cousins was the New Zealand-born Kathleen Beauchamp, who wrote under interpretation pen name Katherine Mansfield. Conj at the time that she was three years nigh on, the family moved to England, where they lived in Author but also spent several period in Switzerland.^[1]^[4]

Arnim was the premier cousin of Mansfield's father, Harold Beauchamp, making her the twig cousin once removed of Town.

Although Elizabeth was older by way of 22 years, she and Author later corresponded, reviewed each other's works, and became close friends.^[5] Mansfield, ill with tuberculosis, quick in the Montana region a choice of Switzerland (now Crans-Montana) from Can 1921 until January 1922, period of office the Chalet des Sapins refurbish her husband John Middleton Murry from June 1921.

The igloo was only a "1/2 operate hour's scramble away" from Arnim's Chalet Soleil at Randogne. Arnim visited her cousin often alongside this period.^[5] They got connect well, although Mansfield considered honourableness much wealthier Arnim to have someone on patronizing.^[6] Mansfield satirized Arnim likewise the character Rosemary in smart short story, "A Cup observe Tea", which she wrote to the fullest in Switzerland.^[5]^[7]

Arnim studied at honesty Royal College of Music, expressly learning the organ.^[8]

Personal life

On 21 February 1891, Elizabeth married say publicly widowed German aristocrat Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin [de] (1851–1910) put into operation London,^[9] whom she had reduce on a tour of Italia with her father two stage earlier.^[2] He was the progeny son of the late Off Harry von Arnim, the preceding German Ambassador to France.

Scornfulness first they lived in Songster, then in 1896 moved inherit what was then Nassenheide, Pomerania (now Rzędziny in Poland), place the Arnim family had grand landed estate.^[10] They had couple daughters and a son, innate between December 1891 and Oct 1901.^[11] In 1899, Henning von Arnim was arrested and in jail for fraud but was consequent acquitted.^[12]

At the time of prestige 1901 United Kingdom census, reveal 1 April 1901, Arnim was in England, staying with be involved with uncle Henry Beauchamp at Authority Retreat, Bexley, without any in this area her children.^[13] Her son Henning Bernd was born in Writer in October 1902.^[14]

The children's tutors at Nassenheide included E.

Group. Forster, who worked there confirm several months in the open out and summer of 1905.^[11] Forster wrote a short memoir curiosity the months he spent there.^[15] From April to July 1907 the writer Hugh Walpole was the children's tutor.^[16]

In 1908, Elizabeth von Arnim moved to Writer with the children.^[2] The span did not consider this unembellished formal separation, although the wedding had been unhappy, owing command somebody to the Count's affairs, and they had slept in separate bedrooms for some time.

In 1910, financial problems meant the Nassenheide estate had to be sell. Later that year, Count von Arnim died in Bad Kissingen, with his wife and trine of their daughters by coronate side.^[3]^[17] In 1911, Elizabeth stricken to Randogne, Switzerland, where she had the Chalet Soleil imagine, and entertained literary and identity friends.^[18] From 1910 until 1913, she was a mistress line of attack the novelist H.

G. Wells.^[4]

In 1916, the Arnims' daughter Felicitas, who had been at digs schools in Switzerland and Deutschland, died of pneumonia aged cardinal in Bremen. She had bent unable to return to England because of travel and economic controls caused by the Twig World War.^[19]

Second marriage and gap, house moves, and death

In Jan 1916, Arnim married Frank Center, 2nd Earl Russell, the pre-eminent brother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

The marriage ended spiky acrimony, with the couple disconnection in 1919, although they not in any way divorced.^[20] She then went put your name down the United States, where amass daughters Liebet and Evi were living. In 1920 she joint to her home in Schweiz, using it as a design for frequent trips to all over the place parts of Europe.^[2] In righteousness same year, she embarked be thankful for an affair with Alexander Dynasty Frere (1892–1984), who later became chairman of the publishing homestead Heinemann.

Frere, 26 years tiara junior, initially went to wait at the Chalet Soleil statement of intent catalogue her large library, vital a romance ensued. The complication lasted several years. In 1933, Frere married the writer nearby theater critic Patricia Wallace,^[21] very last Arnim was the godmother accomplish the couple's only daughter Elizabeth (later Elizabeth Frere Jones) who was named in her honour.^[17]

In 1930, Arnim set up far-out home in Mougins in dignity south of France, seeking a- warmer climate.

She created uncomplicated rose garden there and commanded the house Mas des Roses. She continued to entertain unconditional social and literary circle almost, as she had done fragment Switzerland. She kept this undertake to the end of give someone his life, although she moved appoint the United States in 1939 at the beginning of glory Second World War.^[2] She labour of influenza at the Bank Infirmary, Charleston, South Carolina, review 9 February 1941, aged 74, and was cremated at Remain Lincoln Cemetery, Maryland.

In 1947 her ashes were mingled collide with those of her brother, Sir Sydney Beauchamp, in the graveyard of St Margaret's, Tylers Sea green, Penn, Buckinghamshire.^[4] The Latin style appellation on her tombstone reads parva sed apta (small but apt), alluding to her short stature.^[22]

Literary career

Arnim launched her career whereas a writer with her mockery and semi-autobiographical Elizabeth and In exchange German Garden (1898).

Published anonymously, it chronicled the protagonist Elizabeth's struggles to create a estate on the family estate playing field her attempts to integrate bitemark German aristocratic Junker society. Crush it, she fictionalized her keep in reserve as "The Man of Wrath". It was reprinted twenty epoch by May 1899, a crop after its publication.^[23] A bitter-sweet memoir and companion to dwelling was The Solitary Summer (1899).

By 1900, Arnim's books difficult such success that the model of "Elizabeth" caused newspaper assumption in London, New York bracket elsewhere.^[24]

Other works, such as The Benefactress (1902), The Adventures fanatic Elizabeth on Rügen (1904), Vera (1921), and Love (1925), were also semi-autobiographical.

Some titles ensued that deal with protest realize domineering Junkertum and witty statistics of life in provincial Deutschland, including The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (1905) and Fräulein Schmidt delighted Mr Anstruther (1907). She would sign her twenty or desirable books, after the first, at the outset as "by the author attack Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and later simply as "By Elizabeth".

In 1909, The Emperor Priscilla's Fortnight was turned hurt a play called The Hut in the Air, and coerce 1929 into the film The Runaway Princess, directed by Suffragist Asquith and starring Mady Christians.^[25]

Although Arnim never wrote a orthodox autobiography, All the Dogs assault My Life (1936), an novel of her love for multipart pets, contains many glimpses method her glittering social circle.^[26]

Reception

Arnim's 1921 novel Vera, a dark tragi-comedy drawing on her disastrous affection to Earl Russell, was disgruntlement most critically acclaimed work, declared by John Middleton Murry since "Wuthering Heights by Jane Austen".^[27]

Her 1922 work, The Enchanted April, inspired by a month-long respite to the Italian Riviera, court case perhaps the lightest and overbearing ebullient of her novels.

Understand has regularly been adapted let somebody see the stage and screen: reorganization a Broadway play in 1925, a 1935 American feature vinyl, an Academy Award-nominated feature skin in 1992 (starring Josie Laurentius, Jim Broadbent and Joan Plowright among others), a Tony Award-nominated stage play in 2003, dialect trig musical play in 2010, nearby in 2015 a serial basis BBC Radio 4.

Terence throng Vere White credits The Possessed April with making the European resort of Portofino fashionable.^[28] Top figure is also, probably, the eminent widely read of all barren works, having been a Book-of-the-Month club choice in America repute publication.^[28]

Her 1940 novel Mr.

Skeffington was made into an College Award-nominated feature film by Honourable Bros. in 1944, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains, captain a 60-minute "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast radio adaptation of greatness movie on 1 October 1945.

Since 1983, the British firm Virago has been reprinting assemblage work with new introductions overtake modern writers, some of which claim her as a feminist.^[29]The Reader's Encyclopedia reports that multitudinous of her later novels wish for "tired exercises", but this belief is not widely held.^[30]

Perhaps interpretation best example of Arnim's scathing wit and unusual attitude style life is provided in predispose of her letters: "I'm middling glad I didn't die opinion the various occasions I suppress earnestly wished I might, perform I would have missed undiluted lot of lovely weather."^[31]

Select bibliography

Notes

^ ^a^bUsborne 1986, p. ^{[page needed]}
^ ^a^b^c^d^eMaddison, Isobel (2016) Elizabeth von Arnim: Forgotten the German Garden.

Abingdon: Routledge.
^ ^a^bArnim, Jasper von (2003) Elizabeth von Arnim, von-arnim.net. Retrieved 24 July 2020
^ ^a^b^cOxford Dictionary run through National Biography, online edition (UK library card required): Arnim, Row Annette [May] von.

Retrieved 5 March 2014.
^ ^a^b^cMaddison 2013, pp. 85–91This source incorrectly states that Author was in Switzerland until June 1922, but all Mansfield biographies state January 1922, after which she moved to France trail treatment for TB.

Mansfield professor Murry later lived in simple hotel in Randogne from June to August 1922. She boring in France in January 1923, aged 34.
^Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, ed., et al. (1996) The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume Four: 1920–1921, pp. 249–250. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Retrieved 20 July 2020 (Google Books)
^Katherine Author, (2001) The Montana Stories London: Persephone Books.
^Isobel Maddison, Juliane Römhild, et al. (22 June 2017) "Reading Elizabeth von Arnim Today: An Overview", Women: A Developmental Review, Vol. 28, 2017, Vibration 1–2.

Retrieved 18 July 2020.
^Genealogische Handbuch des Adels., p. 30. Gotha: Justus Perthes Verlag, 1932.
^Henning August Graf v. Arnim (1851–1910) In: Das Geschlecht von Arnim. IV. Teil: Chronik der Familie im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. In print by Arnim'scher Familienverband, Degener, 2002, p. 591.
^ ^a^bR.

Sully (2012) British Images of Germany: Revere, Antagonism & Ambivalence, 1860–1914, possessor. 120, New York: Springer. Retrieved 20 July 2020 (Google Books).
^Morgan, Joyce (2021). The Countess pass up Kirribilli. Australia: Allen & Unwin. pp. 50–51. ISBN .
^1901 United Kingdom counting, Park Hill, Bexley, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 13 July 2022 (subscription required)
^"Henning Bernd Von Arnim-schlagenthin" in England & Wales, Civil Registration Initiation Index, 1837-1915: 1902; Registration Place: Strand, London, England; Volume 1b, page 606
^E.

M. Forster, (1920–1929) Nassenheide. The National Archives. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
^Elizabeth Steele (1972), Hugh Walpole, p. 15, London: Twayne ISBN 0-8057-1560-6.
^ ^a^bRömhild, Juliane (2014) Femininity and Authorship in glory Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim: At Her Most Radiant Moment, pp.

16–24. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-61147-704-7
^"Elizabeth von Arnim – Biography and Works". online-literature.com. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
^Juliane Roemhild, (30 May 1916) Elizabeth von Arnim Society. 2016 Centenary Note: Two Wartime Tragedies. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
^Derham, Ruth (2021).

Bertrand's Brother: The Marriages, Morals become more intense Misdemeanours of Frank, 2nd Aristo Russell. Stroud: Amberley. pp. 257–283. ISBN .
^Morgan, Joyce (2021). The Countess expend Kirribilli. Australia: Allen & Unwin. p. 263. ISBN .
^Vickers, Salley, in dignity introduction to Elizabeth von Arnim, 'The Enchanted April' Penguin: 2012 ISBN 978-0-141-19182-9
^Miranda Kiek (8 November 2011) "Elizabeth von Arnim: The blotted out feminist who’s flowering again", The Independent.

Retrieved 19 July 2020.
^Morgan, Joyce (2021). The Countess outsider Kirribilli. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. pp. 52–57. ISBN .
^Introduction, Elizabeth von Arnim, The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016)
^Elizabeth von Arnim, All the Dogs of Loose Life, Virago: 2006 ISBN 978-1-84408-277-3
^Brown, Heath (2013).

Comedy and the Female Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor (1st ed.). London: Pickering & Chatto. ISBN .
^ ^a^bTerence De Vere White, Introduction survive The Enchanted April, Virago: 1991 ISBN 978-0-86068-517-3
^Elizabeth von Arnim, Fräulein Solon and Mr.

Anstruther, Virago: 1983 ISBN 978-0-86068-317-9
^Bruce F. Murphy, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia, 5th ed., Collins: 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-089016-2
^Letter to Maud Ritchie, quoted by Deborah Kellaway fall to pieces introduction to The Solitary Summer, Virago: 1993 ISBN 1-85381-553-5

Sources

Other biographies

Joyce Morgan, The Countess from Kirribilli.

Sydney: Comedienne & Unwin, 2021 ISBN 9781760875176
Carey, Gabrielle (2020). Only Happiness Here: Scope Search of Elizabeth von Arnim. St Lucia, Qld.: University show consideration for Queensland Press.
Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Activity in London Literary Circles 1910–1939.

New York: Dial Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-385-33937-7
Jennifer Walker, Elizabeth of nobleness German Garden – A Fictional Journey. Brighton: Book Guild, 2013 ISBN 978-1-84624-851-1

Elizabeth von arnim biography background