The Solitary Summer (World Library Classics)

Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an Australian-born British novelist. She also wrote under the pen name Alice Cholmondeley. In 1891 she married a Prussian aristocrat, whom she would later refer to as the "Man of Wrath." Writing was her refuge from an incompatible marriage. Her husband had increasing debts and was eventually sent to prison for fraud. This was when she created her pen name "Elizabeth" and launched her career as a writer by anonymously publishing her semi-autobiographical, brooding yet satirical "Elizabeth and her German Garden" (1898). It would be such a success as to be reprinted twenty times in its first year. A bitter-sweet memoir and companion to it was "The Solitary Summer" (1899).