The Countess from Kirribilli: The mysterious and free-spirited literary sensation who beguiled the world...

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Joyce Morgan

The Countess from Kirribilli

The mysterious and free-spirited literary sensation who beguiled the world

Joyce Morgan

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English

Allen & Unwin
02 July 2021

Biography: literary; Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 ; Biography - Australian

She was 'amused, cynical, ironic, loving, gay, ferocious, cold, ardent but never gentle'. She was a whirlwind. She created around her the atmosphere of a Court at which her friends were either in disgrace or favour, a butt or a blessing.

Elizabeth von Arnim may have been born on the shores of Sydney Harbour, but it was in Victorian London that she discovered society and society discovered her. She made her Court debut before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, was pursued by a Prussian count and married into the formal world of the European aristocracy. It was the novels she wrote about that life that turned her into a literary sensation on both sides of the Atlantic and had her likened to Jane Austen.

Her marriage to the count produced five children but little happiness. Her second marriage to Bertrand Russell's brother was a disaster. But by then she had captivated the great literary and intellectual circles of London and Europe. She brought into her orbit the likes of Nancy Astor, Lady Maud Cunard, her cousin Katherine Mansfield and other writers such as E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham and H.G. Wells, with whom it was said she had a tempestuous affair.

Elizabeth von Arnim was an extraordinary woman who lived during glamorous, exciting and changing times that spanned the innocence of Victorian Sydney and finished with the march of Hitler through Europe. Joyce Morgan brings her to vivid and spellbinding life.

By: Joyce Morgan
Imprint: Allen & Unwin
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 26mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 235mm
Weight: 470g
ISBN: 9781760875176
ISBN 10: 1760875171
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 02 July 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Joyce Morgan is a former arts editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. Long-listed for the 2018 Stella Prize, her biography of artist Martin Sharp was published in 2017 to critical acclaim.