A Pygmalion-style story told with von Arnim’s characteristic wit and charm, this novel introduces us to Salvatia (known as Sally), a much longed-for child to humble shopkeepers. Sally grows up to be an extremely beautiful girl, attracting the attentions of every man who sees her. When her mother dies, her father decides it is just too difficult to defend her virtue and marries her to the first man who proposes. But Jocelyn is about to learn a lesson in marrying for looks alone. The two are from very different classes and have nothing in common: beauty can only bridge the gap so far. Meanwhile, his mother is being pursued by her own unsuitable suitor – debating if she can tolerate his crass personality in return for the security of his wealth. Von Arnim turns her ironic humour to great effect in showing us the follies of her cast of characters, whom we can’t help wishing the best for, despite everything.

Since her mother's death Jennifer has devoted years of her life to her father, managing the family home and acting as his secretary. After the sudden announcement that he has taken a new wife, Jennifer, at 33, seizes the opportunity to lead an independent life. Quickly she secures the lease of Rose Cottage and turns her attention to her own needs and interests. Published in 1931, Father explores the concept of spinsterhood in a time when the financial and social status of single women were often dependent on male family members. While Jennifer is desperate to experience life on her own terms within her reduced financial means, her neighbour Alice is pre-occupied with ensuring her position as head of her brother's household is never challenged.

The charming, slyly comic novel of romantic longing and transformation that inspired the Oscar-nominated film Four very different women, looking to escape dreary London for the sunshine of Italy, take up an offer advertised in the Times for a "small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April." As each blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring, quite unexpected changes occur. An immediate bestseller upon its first publication, in 1922, The Enchanted April set off a craze for tourism to the Italian Riviera that continues today. Published here to coincide with a contemporary retelling, Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen, it's a witty ensemble piece and the perfect romantic rediscovery for fans of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love as well as of Downton Abbey and the hit movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - May 2nd. - Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, "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 any one calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick. I shall spend the months in the garden, and on the plain, and in the forests. I shall watch the things that happen in my garden, and see where I have made mistakes. On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forests, where the pine needles are everlastingly dry, and when the sun shines I'll lie on the heath and see how the broom flares against the clouds. I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no one to worry me. Out there on the plain there is silence, and where there is silence I have discovered there is peace."

Lucy Entwhistle is swept into marriage by rich charismatic widower, Everard Wemyss. Together they live in The Willows, an old sprawling mansion which they share with the specter of his dead wife...

'To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small medieval castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let For the month of April, above a bay on the Italian Riviera.' Four very different women-the dishevelled and downtrodden Mrs Wilkins, the sad, sweet-faced Mrs Arbuthnot, the formidable widow Mrs Fisher, and the ravishing socialite Lady Caroline Dester-are drawn to the shores of the Mediterranean that April. As each, in turn, blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring and finds their spirits stirring, quite unexpected changes occur. The Enchanted April (1922) is a deceptive and timely novel immured in a post-war context, a period noted for its wistful and sometimes satiric writings. Von Arnim's novel is part of this oeuvre and portrays an escape to a carefully described pastoral enclave away from encroaching urbanisation and the spread of new technologies, in an era when the Great War had left many emotionally and physically starved. The journey to San Salvatore by four unhappy women is an escape from stifling parochialism, constraining social and gendered expectations as well as stultifying insularity, but the evocation of an extraordinarily aesthetic and 'enchanted' location suggests more than personal recuperation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Elizabeth von Arnim's eighth novel is a sharp contrast to the sunny optimism of her first best-seller Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898) and her later hit The Enchanted April (1922, adapted several times for screen and stage, including the 1991 film). The Caravaners (1909) is a devastating comedy about an Edwardian caravan holiday in Kent, narrated by the pompous and self-important Baron, a Prussian Major in the German army. His narrative of pained bewilderment at the bizarre behaviour of the English people with whom he has chosen to spend a month in a convoy of horse-drawn holiday caravans (they unaccountably cut the holiday short after only a week) is side-splittingly funny. We sympathise deeply with the lady whom he pursues in a platonic and very one-sided holiday affair, and even more with Baroness Edelgard, the Baron's long-suffering and much younger second wife, who discovers her own holiday freedoms, and becomes newly emancipated in her marriage, to the Baron's horror. `Elizabeth von Arnim' was the pen-name of Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866-1941), an Australian-born British novelist and a cousin of Katherine Mansfield. Her much-loved Prussian husband, Count Henning von Arnim, died a year after she published The Caravaners. The novel reflects her frustration with and exasperated affection for German aristocratic society, and reveals the lost world of European social networks and crusted assumptions that disappeared forever with the First World War, only a few years after The Caravaners' publication. It is also one of the funniest feminist novels ever written.

'This delicious confection will work its magic on all' Daily Telegraph The discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed 'To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine', offers a small medieval castle for rent, above a bay on the Italian Riviera. Four very different women - the dishevelled and downtrodden Mrs Wilkins, the sad, sweet-faced Mrs Arbuthnot, the formidable widow Mrs Fisher and the ravishing socialite Lady Caroline Dester - are drawn to the shores of the Mediterranean that April. As each, in turn, blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring and finds their spirits stirring, quite unexpected changes occur. The Enchanted April, published in 1922, is a witty and delightful depiction of what it is like to rediscover joy. 'Brims with magic and laughter' Amanda Craig, Guardian Includes a new introduction by Salley Vickers, author of Miss Garnet's Angel

Four women, with very different backgrounds and characters - the artless Lottie Wilkins, the pious Rose Arbuthnot, the cantankerous Mrs Fisher and the haughty Lady Caroline Dester - respond to an advertisement in The Times offering a medieval castle to rent in Italy that April. As their joint holiday begins, tensions flare up between them, but they soon bond over their past misfortunes and rediscover hope and the pleasures of life in their tranquil surroundings. A huge best-seller when it was published in 1922, The Enchanted April has inspired generations of readers since and established Portofino and the Italian Riviera as a mainstay of the tourist circuit.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim's brilliant, irrepressible novella, tells the tale of four very different women who, on answering an advertisement in The Times, find themselves far away from the drizzle of London and instead in the warmth of an Italian sun. There, alongside the lapping of the Mediterranean, the women's spirits begin to shift, and quite unexpected changes take place.