The Enchanted April

Funny, irreverent and full of joy, this is the perfect book to accompany you on holiday - a celebration of escaping the everydayWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BRENDA BOWENMrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, cowed and neglected by their husbands, make a daring plan- they will have a holiday. Leaving a drab and rainy London one April and arriving on the shores of the Mediterranean, they discover a flower-filled paradise of beauty, warmth and leisure. Joined by the beautiful Lady Caroline and domineering Mrs Fisher, also in flight from the burdens of their daily lives, the four women proceed to transform themselves and their prospects.

“An enchanting novel, witty, touching and very perceptively written, which will sweep you into wisteria and sunshine”

-- Santa Montefiore
Elizabeth von Armin's most charming novel in every sense: it casts a spell...a sun-washed fairytale Observer
A warm and uplifting book. (Very different from the kind I write!)...I remain in awe of a writer who can produce an enthralling story out of so little. When I'm plotting my books, I think of Von Arnim, and try to balance the dark with some lighter characterisation. -- S.J. Bolton
Filled with hazy hills and fragrant flora, the novel is a dreamily sensuous description of the glories of Italian spring -- Adam Nicolson Mail on Sunday
This delicious confection will work its magic on all Daily Telegraph
Brims with magic and laughter Guardian
The Enchanted April sounds as if it would be an appallingly cloying cream puff of a fairy tale, but that would be to ignore that the author habitually kept a pot of lemon juice mixed with vinegar beside her ink-pot. With this bracing element there is additionally what can only be called a feast of flowers, hanging from every wall and pouring scent over the company. Times Literary Supplement
A genuine feeling for color and for beauty New York Times
A perfect summer read – light, romantic and witty -- Helena Gumley-Mason, 4 stars Lady
one of the most enchanting books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading Reading Matters

Elizabeth von Arnim was born on 31 August 1866 in Australia. She was cousin to the writer Katherine Mansfield. In 1890 she married her first husband, Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin, a Prussian aristocrat, with whom she had five children. Elizabeth and her German Garden, published anonymously in 1898, was a barely fictionalised account of Elizabeth's life and the creation of her garden at the family home of Nassenheide in Pomerania, where Hugh Walpole and E. M. Forster were tutors to her children. Its instant success was followed by many more novels, including Vera (1921) and The Enchanted April (1922), and another almost-autobiography, All the Dogs of My Life (1936). She separated from Count von Arnim in 1908, and after his death two years later she built a house in Switzerland, marrying John Francis Stanley Russell in 1916. This marriage also ended in separation in 1919 when Elizabeth moved to America, where she died on 9 February 1941, aged 74.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BRENDA BOWEN 'Brims with magic and laughter' Guardian A notice in The Times addressed to 'Those Who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine' advertises a 'small medieval Italian castle to be let for the month of April'. Four very different women take up the offer: Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, both fleeing unappreciative husbands; beautiful Lady Caroline, sick of being 'grabbed' by lovesick men; and the imperious, ageing Mrs Fisher. On the shores of the Mediterranean, beauty, warmth and leisure weave their spell, and nothing will ever be the same again. See also: Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen

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