The Solitary Summer - Softcover

Von Arnim, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 153362433X ISBN 13: 9781533624338

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

"I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if anyone calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick . . . Wouldn't a whole lovely summer, quite alone, be delightful?’

“Offers a generous harvest of beautiful and poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all of which are expressed in a graceful and supple pose....It is a privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge.” -Chicago Tribune

“Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines....The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream with her on her bench in the garden, in the fields where the yellow lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view.” -Recreation

“A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three delightful babies, and a ‘man of wrath’ who by no means merits the title, – these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, has evolved a charming little book.” -The Nation

“She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and life seem only tame and artificial performances.” -New York Tribune

About this title

From the Publisher:

"The Solitary Summer" is a witty, lyrical account of a rejuvenating summer. Descriptions of magnificent larkspurs and burning nasturiums give way to those of cooling forest walks--and of clambering up a mud bank when the miller is not in view. Rainy days prompt a little philanthropy, until the sun returns the gardener to the refuge of her beloved plants. In her introduction, Deborah Kellaway writes: "All of von Arnim's heroines are escapists. They escape from riches to the simple life, or from conventional home life into foreign travel...In her first two books "[Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and "The Solitary Summer]," the escape is simply into the garden...And it is her capacity to present her joy in that place that made the books bestsellers. Here readers are escaping, with her, into happiness."

About the Author:

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an Australian-born British novelist. By marriage she became Gräfin (Countess) von Arnim-Schlagenthin, and by a second marriage, Countess Russell. Although known in her early life as Mary, after the publication of her first book, she was known to her readers, eventually to her friends, and finally even to her family as Elizabeth and she is now invariably referred to as Elizabeth von Arnim. She also wrote under the pen name Alice Cholmondeley.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 153362433X
• ISBN 13: 9781533624338
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 124