Elizabeth von Arnim (1966-1941) came from a highly-educated, freewheeling English background and married a Prussian aristocrat when she was 25. The dullest book takes on a certain saving grace if read out of doors, just as bread and butter, devoid of charm in the drawing room, is ambrosia eaten under a tree. Elizabeth is an unusual young woman for her time and place, Germany in the final years of the 19th century. And her quick explanation of the dejected gardener who walked around with a spade in one hand and a revolver in the other.

If you set out on a literary pilgrimage, as I did, starting with "German Garden," is a wonderful beginning. So it was very easy for me to get caught up in Elizabeth's lyrical descriptions of her plants and her dreams about what her garden might look like in the future. By the end, in a “speech” voiced by Elizabeth’s “oh so sage” husband, the satirical message becomes crystal clear. I love gardens and I love flowers, but I do not enjoy gardening so I was not inspired by all her gardening. Römhild, Juliane (2014) Femininity and Authorship in the Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim: At Her Most Radiant Moment, p.Her emotional strength, her joy, and her solace, when comfort is needed, all come from her garden, into which she pours her creativity despite receiving little encouragement for this from the people in her life. It was published in 1898, when Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941) was still married to her first husband Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin, a Prussian aristocrat. She does not actually garden, being a lady; she says on several occasions that she wishes she could just get a spade and dig instead of having to give instructions. Very pompous and men-know-everything and women should be seen at times but rarely ever heard because nothing of sense comes out of their mouths (that is the attitude of the Man of Wrath).

The husband being of the German aristocracy, Elizabeth was additionally burdened with the traditions, expectations and conventions. Stuck in a foreign land with an overbearing husband, Elizabeth took in to gardening and writing as a solace. Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with shrieks if condemned to such a life. She has moved to a house in the middle of the french countryside and I hope this inspires her to start here own garden.Give me a garden full of strong, healthy creatures, able to stand roughness and cold without dismally giving in and dying. We find how Elizabeth, always acutely aware of Anglo-German tensions, was twice forced to abandon her home before advancing German armies in Europe. Elizabeth and her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical book written in 1898 by Elizabeth von Arnim (author of The Enchanted April) about her life and garden in the area of Nassenheide, Pomerania, where the family had their estate (her husband was minor nobility). Chiudo il libro con una certa soddisfazione perché questa lettura è risultata essere veramente piacevole. But in between the lines as well as through many expressions, the readers get a good insight into what Elizabeth's life was.