Elizabeth von arnim biography of williams

I have become a little obsessed with Elizabeth von Armin in recent times.

A few facts:

She was born August 31, 1866 in Kirribilli, Sydney, Australia and died on the 9th February, 1941 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Her birth name was Mary Annette Beauchamp, and her family nickname was May.

Her first marriage was to German Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin in Florence in 1889, making her a Countess.

Their children were:

• Eva Sophie Luise Anna Felicitas (called Evi) was born in Berlin on 8th December 1889. 
• Elisabeth Irene (Liebet) born on the 15th February, 1893.
• Beatrix Edith (called Trix) born on 3rd of April, 1894.
• Felicitas Joyce was born in London on the 29th of July, 1899 and died on the 3rd of June, 1916 in Bremen
• Henning Bernd (H. B.) was born in London on the 27th of on October, 1902.

Henning died on the 20th of August, 1910 

Her second marriage was to John Francis Stanley Russell (Frank), 2nd Earl Russell, on the 11th of February, 1916, making her Countess Russell. The marriage only lasted briefly, with Elizabeth leaving for good in March 1919. Frank died on the died on 3rd of March, 1931.

She emigrated to the USA in May 1939.

Her ashes were interred in the St Margaret’s Tylers Green cemetery, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire next to her brother Sydney.

• Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898)
• The Solitary Summer (1899)
• April Baby’s Book of Tunes (1900)
• The Benefactress (1901)
• The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen (1904)
• Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight (1905)
• Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907)
• The Caravaners (1909)
• The Pastor’s Wife (1914)
• Christine (1917) (published as Alice Cholmondeley)
• Christopher and Columbus (1919)
• In the Mountains (1920)
• Vera (1921)
• The Enchanted April (1922)
• Love (1925)
• Introduction to Sally (1926)
• Expiation (1929)
• Father (1931)
• The Jasmine Farm (

Mary 'May' Beauchamp, known later as Elizabeth von Arnim, was born in 1866 in Australia and lived there until she was five. After her family's return to England she went to two London day schools. Then, on holiday in Rome, she met Graf Henning August von Arnim, a recent widower, and married him in 1891. They lived in Berlin and had five children. After moving to Nassenheide, the house on the von Arnim estate, 'Elizabeth' anonymously published the bestsellingElizabeth and her German Garden. Several more novels followed. In 1908 she left for England, then went to live in Switzerland and wrote a dozen more books. A three-year affair with HG Wells was followed by marriage to Earl Russell, a disastrous mistake which she immortalised inVera(1921).Expiation(1929) has until now been inexplicably omitted from the von Arnim oeuvre and never reprinted, but lays claim to be her best novel. In 1939 she went to America, where she died two years later.

When I first went in search for Elizabeth von Arnim I got on a ferry. I thought, for once, I should do what proper biographers do and begin at the beginning – where she was born. Because so far, all three proper biographers had got it wrong. The first biographer, Elizabeth’s daughter, knew that her mother was born in Australia but wasn’t sure where. The second claimed she was born in New Zealand, presumably because she was from the same Beauchamp family as her cousin, Katherine Mansfield. And the third, and most recent, who had followed Elizabeth’s footsteps throughout Europe, but not her infant footsteps around Sydney Harbour, also misplaced her subject’s birthplace, describing it as ‘overlooking Rose Bay’ and and remarking ‘that the site of her birth is still known as Clifton Gardens.’

This is the kind of mistake that Elizabeth would have delighted in, a woman who set traps for future biographers. Clifton Gardens is in Mosman, seven kilometres from Elizabeth’s home in Kirribilli, but a completely comprehensible error. What more seductive idea can there be for a biographer than that of your beloved subject, author of romantic hymns to gardening, having had her very beginnings in a garden?

It was the summer of 2017. A friend and I got off the ferry at Kirribilli and traipsed around the surrounding streets, turning old maps upside down, searching for the site where Beulah House once stood, the stately home of Henry and Louey Beauchamp and their family of six children, the youngest of whom was to become the celebrated novelist, Elizabeth von Arnim.

It is typical of Elizabeth that even this simple fact – her birthplace – is difficult to ascertain. She is a paradox of candour and clandestineness, of frankness and dissimulation, of bold forthright opinions and hidden, unspoken judgments. She was well aware that her highly unconventional life would attract biographers and in her final days (according to the second bi

Walker, Jennifer. "Elizabeth von Arnim". The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 1: Letters to Correspondents A – J, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020, pp. 20-64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399504171-007

Walker, J. (2020). Elizabeth von Arnim. In The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 1: Letters to Correspondents A – J (pp. 20-64). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399504171-007

Walker, J. 2020. Elizabeth von Arnim. The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 1: Letters to Correspondents A – J. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 20-64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399504171-007

Walker, Jennifer. "Elizabeth von Arnim" In The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 1: Letters to Correspondents A – J, 20-64. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399504171-007

Walker J. Elizabeth von Arnim. In: The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 1: Letters to Correspondents A – J. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; 2020. p.20-64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399504171-007

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