Biblio Library

The only novel published under the pen-name Alice Cholmondeley, ‘Christine’ gives insight into von Arnim's thoughts about the atrocities of World War I.

The story is told through a series of letters to her mother in Britain from the titular Christine, an English girl who is studying in Germany in 1914 in the lead up to World War I.

Initially marketed as non-fiction, this novel could be a semi-autobiographical account of von Arnim’s own daughters, Beatrix and Felicitas, who were living in Germany during World War I.

‘Christine’ will be enjoyed by fans of 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society'.

Elizabeth von Arnim was an English novelist – a cousin of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield – born as Mary Annette Beauchamp in Australia in 1866. She married a German aristocrat and her earliest written works are set in Germany.

Von Arnim launched her career as a writer with her satirical and semi-autobiographical work ‘Elizabeth and Her German Garden’, published anonymously in 1898. Although she was known by the name May in her early life, when she began writing, her success as ‘Elizabeth’ meant that her writings were ascribed to the name Elizabeth von Arnim.