I first came across Elizabeth von Arnim when I picked up a copy of The Enchanted April in Waterstones some 20 years ago and thought 'this looks interesting'. I purchased it, went home, read it in two hours and came straight back into town and Waterstones and bought the other three on the shelves. Since then I have never looked back and have managed to track down the out of print, old, unknown titles over the years. On one never to be forgotten day in Cambridge, some years ago, I found a treasure trove of E von A in a box outside a bookshop, lovely blue bound editions at the princely sum of 50p each. I swooped, I grabbed, I practically fainted and they all came home with me.
One of hers has eluded me however - In the Mountains. I have been searching for some time and yes, I have found a copy, but at £150+ I decided that I would give this a miss. Did another search today, just out of idle interest and to my utter delight found out that Virago are going to reprint this next year for the princely sum of £10. I have already pre-ordered it and this is now lurking in my Amazonian basked. I am simply thrilled to bits that at long last I will be able to lay my hands on this elusive title and finish my collection. I think I will write to Virago and plead with them to issue it a la Green cover as so many of the other von Arnims are and not to use the modern jackets which I really find totally featureless. So wish me luck.
Many of Elizabeth von Arnim's output are very very funny. Elizabeth's Adventures in Rugen, Christoper and Columbus and Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther come to mind, and a rather neglected title, An Introduction to Sally which chronicles the fatal effect a simply stunningly beautiful girl has on all around her, reduced me to hoots when I first found it in a second hand bookshop, but many of them are thoughtful and with hidden depths. I am thinking of Love, the story of an older woman married to a much younger man, Mr Skeffington and, of course, her masterpiece, Vera, which portrays the story of a mentally abusive marriage to a possessive and controlling husband quite chillingly.
The most delightful of all her books though is, of course, The Enchanted April which I have now read numberless times and will somebody please persuade the powers that are in control of the process, to issue this on DVD in the UK (it is available in the US) as my video has been played so many times it now looks like a lace doily....
