The Caravaners
Published on 16. September 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-912766-12-3 (ISBN)
Description
Elizabeth von Arnim's eighth novel is a sharp contrast to the sunny optimism of her first best-seller Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898) and her later hit The Enchanted April (1922, adapted several times for screen and stage, including the 1991 film). The Caravaners (1909) is a devastating comedy about an Edwardian caravan holiday in Kent, narrated by the pompous and self-important Baron, a Prussian Major in the German army.
His narrative of pained bewilderment at the bizarre behaviour of the English people with whom he has chosen to spend a month in a convoy of horse-drawn holiday caravans (they unaccountably cut the holiday short after only a week) is side-splittingly funny. We sympathise deeply with the lady whom he pursues in a platonic and very one-sided holiday affair, and even more with Baroness Edelgard, the Baron's long-suffering and much younger second wife, who discovers her own holiday freedoms, and becomes newly emancipated in her marriage, to the Baron's horror.
`Elizabeth von Arnim' was the pen-name of Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866-1941), an Australian-born British novelist and a cousin of Katherine Mansfield. Her much-loved Prussian husband, Count Henning von Arnim, died a year after she published The Caravaners.
The novel reflects her frustration with and exasperated affection for German aristocratic society, and reveals the lost world of European social networks and crusted assumptions that disappeared forever with the First World War, only a few years after The Caravaners' publication. It is also one of the funniest feminist novels ever written.
His narrative of pained bewilderment at the bizarre behaviour of the English people with whom he has chosen to spend a month in a convoy of horse-drawn holiday caravans (they unaccountably cut the holiday short after only a week) is side-splittingly funny. We sympathise deeply with the lady whom he pursues in a platonic and very one-sided holiday affair, and even more with Baroness Edelgard, the Baron's long-suffering and much younger second wife, who discovers her own holiday freedoms, and becomes newly emancipated in her marriage, to the Baron's horror.
`Elizabeth von Arnim' was the pen-name of Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866-1941), an Australian-born British novelist and a cousin of Katherine Mansfield. Her much-loved Prussian husband, Count Henning von Arnim, died a year after she published The Caravaners.
The novel reflects her frustration with and exasperated affection for German aristocratic society, and reveals the lost world of European social networks and crusted assumptions that disappeared forever with the First World War, only a few years after The Caravaners' publication. It is also one of the funniest feminist novels ever written.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Illustrations
No
ISBN-13
978-1-912766-12-3 (9781912766123)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941) was born Mary Annette Beauchamp, and was an Australian-born British novelist. She married a German aristocrat and her best-known works are set in Germany. After her first husband's death, she had a three-year affair with the writer H. G. Wells, then later married Frank Russell, elder brother of the Nobel prize-winning writer and philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a cousin of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield. Her first marriage made her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and her second Elizabeth, Countess Russell. Though known in early life as May, publication of her first book introduced her to readers as Elizabeth, which she eventually became to her friends and finally even to her family. She is now known invariably as Elizabeth von Arnim. She lived in Nassenheide, Prussia, in London and in Switzerland. She died in the USA in 1941 while visiting her married daughter. Juliane Roemhild is a lecturer at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and researches British and German interwar literature. She is particularly interested in women's writing, middlebrow novels
and representations of happiness in fiction. She is a founding member of the Elizabeth von Arnim Society. Her monograph Authorship & Femininity in the Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim (Fairleigh Dickinson UP) was published in 2014.
and representations of happiness in fiction. She is a founding member of the Elizabeth von Arnim Society. Her monograph Authorship & Femininity in the Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim (Fairleigh Dickinson UP) was published in 2014.