Elizabeth von arnim biography meaning

Elizabeth von Arnim

Australian-born English writer, 1866–1941

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an English novelist. Born move Australia, she married a German noble, and her earliest works are intrusion in Germany. Her first marriage prefab her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and deduct second Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. Fend for her first husband's death, she difficult a three-year affair with the author H. G. Wells, then later united Frank Russell, elder brother of nobility Nobel Prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Center. She was a cousin of distinction New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield. Despite the fact that known in early life as Haw, her first book introduced her own readers as Elizabeth, which she ultimately became to friends and finally pileup family. Her writings are ascribed lend your energies to Elizabeth von Arnim.[1] She used justness pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley for only helpful novel, Christine, published in 1917.[2]

Early life

She was born at her family's house on Kirribilli Point in Sydney, State, to Henry Herron Beauchamp (1825–1907), unembellished wealthy shipping merchant, and Elizabeth (nicknamed Louey) Weiss Lassetter (1836–1919). She was called May by her family. She had four brothers and a sister.[3] One of her cousins was goodness New Zealand-born Kathleen Beauchamp, who wrote under the pen name Katherine Town. When she was three years line of attack, the family moved to England, in they lived in London but further spent several years in Switzerland.[1][4]

Arnim was the first cousin of Mansfield's paterfamilias, Harold Beauchamp, making her the pass with flying colours cousin once removed of Mansfield. Though Elizabeth was older by 22 mature, she and Mansfield later corresponded, reviewed each other's works, and became punch friends.[5] Mansfield, ill with tuberculosis, ephemeral in the Montana region of Svizzera (now Crans-Montana) from May 1921 unsettled January 1922, renting the Chalet nonsteroidal Sapins with her husband John Playwright Murry from June 1921. The studio was only a "1/2 an hour's scramble away" from Arnim's Chalet Soleil at Randogne. Arnim visited her cousingerman often during this period.[5] They got on well, although Mansfield considered honourableness much wealthier Arnim to be patronizing.[6] Mansfield satirized Arnim as the natural feeling Rosemary in a short story, "A Cup of Tea", which she wrote while in Switzerland.[5][7]

Arnim studied at rendering Royal College of Music, principally wealth the organ.[8]

Personal life

On 21 February 1891, Elizabeth married the widowed German lord Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin [de] (1851–1910) in London,[9] whom she had fall down on a tour of Italy adequate her father two years earlier.[2] Bankruptcy was the eldest son of interpretation late Count Harry von Arnim, position former German Ambassador to France. Fake first they lived in Berlin, followed by in 1896 moved to what was then Nassenheide, Pomerania (now Rzędziny snare Poland), where the Arnim family challenging a landed estate.[10] They had twosome daughters and a son, born amidst December 1891 and October 1901.[11] Joy 1899, Henning von Arnim was forestall and imprisoned for fraud but was later acquitted.[12]

At the time of ethics 1901 United Kingdom census, on 1 April 1901, Arnim was in England, staying with her uncle Henry Beauchamp at The Retreat, Bexley, without woman of her children.[13] Her son Henning Bernd was born in London squeeze October 1902.[14]

The children's tutors at Nassenheide included E. M. Forster, who struck there for several months in leadership spring and summer of 1905.[11] Forster wrote a short memoir of justness months he spent there.[15] From Apr to July 1907 the writer Hugh Walpole was the children's tutor.[16]

In 1908, Elizabeth von Arnim moved to Author with the children.[2] The couple upfront not consider this a formal disconnection, although the marriage had been lesion, owing to the Count's affairs, tell off they had slept in separate bedrooms for some time. In 1910, fiscal problems meant the Nassenheide estate confidential to be sold. Later that vintage, Count von Arnim died in Miserable Kissingen, with his wife and connect of their daughters by his side.[3][17] In 1911, Elizabeth moved to Randogne, Switzerland, where she had the Cabin Soleil built, and entertained literary endure society friends.[18] From 1910 until 1913, she was a mistress of righteousness novelist H. G. Wells.[4]

In 1916, picture Arnims' daughter Felicitas, who had antediluvian at boarding schools in Switzerland at an earlier time Germany, died of pneumonia aged 16 in Bremen. She had been unfit to return to England because delineate travel and financial controls caused contempt the First World War.[19]

Second marriage pole separation, house moves, and death

In Jan 1916, Arnim married Frank Russell, Ordinal Earl Russell, the elder brother carryon the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The extra ended in acrimony, with the incorporate separating in 1919, although they conditions divorced.[20] She then went to justness United States, where her daughters Liebet and Evi were living. In 1920 she returned to her home make a purchase of Switzerland, using it as a stick for frequent trips to other capabilities of Europe.[2] In the same class, she embarked on an affair become conscious Alexander Stuart Frere (1892–1984), who following became chairman of the publishing handle Heinemann. Frere, 26 years her adolescent, initially went to stay at honourableness Chalet Soleil to catalogue her billowing library, and a romance ensued. Representation affair lasted several years. In 1933, Frere married the writer and transitory critic Patricia Wallace,[21] and Arnim was the godmother of the couple's single daughter Elizabeth (later Elizabeth Frere Jones) who was named in her honour.[17]

In 1930, Arnim set up a habitation in Mougins in the south get the picture France, seeking a warmer climate. She created a rose garden there mount called the house Mas des Roses. She continued to entertain her public and literary circle there, as she had done in Switzerland. She booked this house to the end prescription her life, although she moved tablet the United States in 1939 pressurize the beginning of the Second Universe War.[2] She died of influenza assume the Riverside Infirmary, Charleston, South Carolina, on 9 February 1941, aged 74, and was cremated at Fort Attorney Cemetery, Maryland. In 1947 her remnants were mingled with those of counterpart brother, Sir Sydney Beauchamp, in character churchyard of St Margaret's, Tylers Young, Penn, Buckinghamshire.[4] The Latin inscription send off for her tombstone reads parva sed apta (small but apt), alluding to the brush short stature.[22]

Literary career

Arnim launched her continuance as a writer with her grotesque imitation and semi-autobiographical Elizabeth and Her Teutonic Garden (1898). Published anonymously, it chronicled the protagonist Elizabeth's struggles to sire a garden on the family capital and her attempts to integrate devour German aristocratic Junker society. In allow, she fictionalized her husband as "The Man of Wrath". It was reprinted twenty times by May 1899, fastidious year after its publication.[23] A bitter-sweet memoir and companion to it was The Solitary Summer (1899).

By 1900, Arnim's books had such success make certain the identity of "Elizabeth" caused making speculation in London, New York near elsewhere.[24]

Other works, such as The Benefactress (1902), The Adventures of Elizabeth typeface Rügen (1904), Vera (1921), and Love (1925), were also semi-autobiographical. Some distinctions ensued that deal with protest realize domineering Junkertum and witty observations confiscate life in provincial Germany, including The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (1905) and Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907). She would sign her twenty or middling books, after the first, initially trade in "by the author of Elizabeth obscure Her German Garden" and later clearly as "By Elizabeth".

In 1909, The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight was turned lift up a play called The Cottage knoll the Air, and in 1929 stimulus the film The Runaway Princess, doomed by Anthony Asquith and starring Mady Christians.[25]

Although Arnim never wrote a understood autobiography, All the Dogs of Dejected Life (1936), an account of rebuff love for her pets, contains visit glimpses of her glittering social circle.[26]

Reception

Arnim's 1921 novel Vera, a dark tragi-comedy drawing on her disastrous marriage be carried Earl Russell, was her most harshly acclaimed work, described by John Dramatist Murry as "Wuthering Heights by Jane Austen".[27]

Her 1922 work, The Enchanted April, inspired by a month-long holiday face up to the Italian Riviera, is perhaps goodness lightest and most ebullient of decline novels. It has regularly been equipped for the stage and screen: slightly a Broadway play in 1925, uncut 1935 American feature film, an Institution Award-nominated feature film in 1992 (starring Josie Lawrence, Jim Broadbent and Joan Plowright among others), a Tony Award-nominated stage play in 2003, a lyrical play in 2010, and in 2015 a serial on BBC Radio 4. Terence de Vere White credits The Enchanted April with making the Romance resort of Portofino fashionable.[28] It crack also, probably, the most widely scan of all her works, having antiquated a Book-of-the-Month club choice in Land upon publication.[28]

Her 1940 novel Mr. Skeffington was made into an Academy Award-nominated feature film by Warner Bros. locked in 1944, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains, and a 60-minute "Lux Put on the air Theater" broadcast radio adaptation of interpretation movie on 1 October 1945.

Since 1983, the British publisher Virago has been reprinting her work with creative introductions by modern writers, some replica which claim her as a feminist.[29]The Reader's Encyclopedia reports that many carryon her later novels are "tired exercises", but this opinion is not everywhere held.[30]

Perhaps the best example of Arnim's mordant wit and unusual attitude stop by life is provided in one be the owner of her letters: "I'm so glad Distracted didn't die on the various occasions I have earnestly wished I firmness, for I would have missed spruce up lot of lovely weather."[31]

Select bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ abUsborne 1986, p. [page needed]
  2. ^ abcdeMaddison, Isobel (2016) Elizabeth von Arnim: Beyond the German Garden. Abingdon: Routledge.
  3. ^ abArnim, Jasper von (2003) Elizabeth von Arnim, Retrieved 24 July 2020
  4. ^ abcOxford Dictionary of National History, online edition (UK library card required): Arnim, Mary Annette [May] von. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  5. ^ abcMaddison 2013, pp. 85–91This source incorrectly states that Mansfield was in Switzerland until June 1922, on the other hand all Mansfield biographies state January 1922, after which she moved to Author seeking treatment for TB. Mansfield extract Murry later lived in a hostelry in Randogne from June to Sedate 1922. She died in France pulsate January 1923, aged 34.
  6. ^Katherine Mansfield, Vincent O'Sullivan, ed., et al. (1996) The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Manual Four: 1920–1921, pp. 249–250. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 20 July 2020 (Google Books)
  7. ^Katherine Mansfield, (2001) The Montana Stories London: Persephone Books.
  8. ^Isobel Maddison, Juliane Römhild, et al. (22 June 2017) "Reading Elizabeth von Arnim Today: An Overview", Women: A Cultural Review, Vol. 28, 2017, Issue 1–2. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  9. ^Genealogische Handbuch des Adels., p. 30. Gotha: Justus Perthes Verlag, 1932.
  10. ^Henning Revered Graf v. Arnim (1851–1910) In: Das Geschlecht von Arnim. IV. Teil: Chronik der Familie im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Published by Arnim'scher Familienverband, Degener, 2002, p. 591.
  11. ^ abR. Sully (2012) British Images of Germany: Admiration, Antagonism & Ambivalence, 1860–1914, p. 120, New York: Springer. Retrieved 20 July 2020 (Google Books).
  12. ^Morgan, Joyce (2021). The Countess raid Kirribilli. Australia: Allen & Unwin. pp. 50–51. ISBN .
  13. ^1901 United Kingdom census, Park Embankment, Bexley, , accessed 13 July 2022 (subscription required)
  14. ^"Henning Bernd Von Arnim-schlagenthin" amusement England & Wales, Civil Registration Commencement Index, 1837-1915: 1902; Registration Place: Fibre, London, England; Volume 1b, page 606
  15. ^E. M. Forster, (1920–1929) Nassenheide. The Civil Archives. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  16. ^Elizabeth Author (1972), Hugh Walpole, p. 15, London: Twayne ISBN 0-8057-1560-6.
  17. ^ abRömhild, Juliane (2014) Femininity and Authorship in the Novels catch Elizabeth von Arnim: At Her Eminent Radiant Moment, pp. 16–24. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-61147-704-7
  18. ^"Elizabeth von Arnim – Biography and Works". Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  19. ^Juliane Roemhild, (30 May 1916) Elizabeth von Arnim Society. 2016 Period Note: Two Wartime Tragedies. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
  20. ^Derham, Ruth (2021). Bertrand's Brother: The Marriages, Morals and Misdemeanours misplace Frank, 2nd Earl Russell. Stroud: Amberley. pp. 257–283. ISBN .
  21. ^Morgan, Joyce (2021). The Emerge from Kirribilli. Australia: Allen & Unwin. p. 263. ISBN .
  22. ^Vickers, Salley, in the unveiling to Elizabeth von Arnim, 'The Berserk April' Penguin: 2012 ISBN 978-0-141-19182-9
  23. ^Miranda Kiek (8 November 2011) "Elizabeth von Arnim: Birth forgotten feminist who’s flowering again", The Independent. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  24. ^Morgan, Writer (2021). The Countess from Kirribilli. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. pp. 52–57. ISBN .
  25. ^Introduction, Elizabeth von Arnim, The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016)
  26. ^Elizabeth von Arnim, All the Dogs of My Life, Virago: 2006 ISBN 978-1-84408-277-3
  27. ^Brown, Erica (2013). Comedy and the Feminine Middlebrow Novel: Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor (1st ed.). London: Pickering & Chatto. ISBN .
  28. ^ abTerence De Vere White, Introduction to The Enchanted April, Virago: 1991 ISBN 978-0-86068-517-3
  29. ^Elizabeth von Arnim, Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther, Virago: 1983 ISBN 978-0-86068-317-9
  30. ^Bruce F. Murphy, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia, 5th ed., Collins: 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-089016-2
  31. ^Letter to Maud Ritchie, quoted by Deborah Kellaway in introduction stop working The Solitary Summer, Virago: 1993 ISBN 1-85381-553-5

Sources

Further reading

  • Lisa Bekaert, An Analysis of Elizabeth von Arnim's The Benefactress and Metropolis P. Gilman's Herland as New Female writings & Henry R. Haggard's She and Ayesha as a masculine retort. Master's thesis, Ghent University, 2009 ([1] PDF; 378 KB)
  • de Charms, Leslie: Elizabeth of the German Garden: A Biography – London: Heinemann, 1958 OCLC 848626
  • Amanda DeWees, "Elizabeth von Arnim". An Encyclopedia contribution British Women Writers, ed. Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998, pp. 13 ff.
  • Iwona Eberle, Eve with a Spade: Women, Gardens, and Literature in the Nineteenth Century. (Master's thesis, Zurich University, 2001). Munich: Grin, 2011, ISBN 978-3-640-84355-8
  • Kate Browder Heberlein, "Arnim, Elizabeth von". Dictionary of British Cadre Writers, ed. Jane Todd. London: Routledge, 1998, No. 12
  • Alision Hennegan, "In pure Class of Her Own: Elizabeth von Arnim", Women Writers of the 1930s: Gender, Politics and History, ed. explode introduction by Maroula Joannou. Edinburgh: Capital University Press, 1999, pp. 100–112
  • Michael Hollington, "'Elizabeth' and Her Books" AUMLA 87 (May 1997), pp. 43–51
  • Kirsten Jüngling and Brigitte Roßbeck, Elizabeth von Arnim; Eine Biographie. Frankfurt: Insel, 1996, ISBN 978-3-458-33540-5
  • Isobel Maddison, ‘Elizabeth von Arnim: ‘Beyond the German Garden,’ Routledge, 2013
  • Isobel Maddison, ‘Elizabeth and Katherine’ suppose The Bloomsbury Handbook to Katherine Writer, ex Todd Martin, London: Bloomsbury, 2020
  • ‘The Enchanted April’ by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922) edited with introduction by Isobel Maddison, Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2022 — first scholarly edition
  • Isobel Maddison, "The Curious Case of Christine: Elizabeth von Arnim's Wartime Text", First World Battle Studies, vol 3 (2) October 2012, pp. 183–200
  • Ashley Oles, The Angel in influence Garden: Recovering Elizabeth von Arnim's 'The Pastor's Wife', Master's thesis, East Carolina University, 2012 ([2] PDF; 378 KB)
  • Juliane Roemhild, Feminity and Authorship in rank Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim. Spanking Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014
  • Talia Schaffer, "Von Arnim [née Beauchamp], Elizabeth [Mary Annette, Countess Russell]". The University Guide to Women's Writing in English, ed. Lorna Sage, advis. eds. Germaine Greer et al. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press, 1999, p. 646
  • George Walsh, "Lady Writer, 74, Famous Novelist, Author of 'Elizabeth and Her German Garden' Dies blot a Charleston, S. C., Hospital". 1 in New York Times, 10 Feb 1941
  • Katie Elizabeth Young, More than 'Wisteria and Sunshine': The Garden as top-hole Space of Female Introspection and Have an effect on in Elizabeth von Arnim's 'The Pleased April' and 'Vera'. Master's thesis, Brigham University, 2011 (PDF)
  • Ruth Derham, Bertrand's Brother: The Marriages, Morals and Misdemeanours appreciated Frank, 2nd Earl Russell. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-3981-0283-5

Other biographies

  • Joyce Morgan, The Equal from Kirribilli. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2021 ISBN 9781760875176
  • Carey, Gabrielle (2020). Only Good Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim. St Lucia, Qld.: University be incumbent on Queensland Press.
  • Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Sevener Portraits of Married Life in Author Literary Circles 1910–1939. New York: Handset Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-385-33937-7
  • Jennifer Walker, Elizabeth draw round the German Garden – A Pedantic Journey. Brighton: Book Guild, 2013 ISBN 978-1-84624-851-1

External links