The Solitary Summer

Hailed as "one of the three finest wits of her day," the Countess Elizabeth von Arnim cemented her literary reputation with this companion work to her extraordinarily popular first novel, the semi-autobiographical Elizabeth and Her German Garden (also available from Cosimo Classics). First published in 1899, this is a proto-feminist account of one woman's attempt to carve out of a space of her own-away from the husband she only half jokingly refers to as her "Man of Wrath"-in the rambling gardens of the family's county estate. By turns bitingly satirical and achingly lovely, this will delight fans of von Armin's friends and fellow writers E. M. Forster and Katherine Mansfield. British novelist ELIZABETH VON ARNIM (1866-1941) is also the author of Enchanted April.