Described as a novel, Elizabeth and her German Garden has the feel of a memoir. Written in the form of a diary, it was Elizabeth von Arnim’s first novel, originally published anonymously. It is immediately very personal as it recounts the first couple of blissful months that the Elizabeth of the title spends alone supervising the redecorating work at her German home.
Here in the garden of her home, Elizabeth is able to escape the traditional routine of German wife and mother. Her simple joy in her garden is adorably infectious, she has a lot to learn about gardens – she orders a mass of seeds and is deflated when the promised paradise doesn’t materialise. Her gardener and his assistant are sometimes bemused by her instructions – but bit by bit her garden begins to take shape. Her days are spent almost entirely in the garden; here her meals of salad and bread are served to her on a tray. At night she keeps an old dinner bell by her bedside which helps to quell the night time fear of being alone. Elizabeth revels in the beauty of her peonies, roses and lilacs. Wishing sometimes that convention didn’t preclude her from getting her own hands dirty.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...

After enjoying Enchanted April so much I was suprised I didn't enjoy this one. I found Elizabeth unkind and shallow. Taking a baby owl from a nest was horrible. I know you have to view this through eyes of the time but I found her views of people from a class she saw as below her awful.

“ In the middle of this plain is the oasis of bird cherries and greenery where I spend my happy days, and in the middle of the oasis is the gray stone house with many gables where I pass my reluctant nights.”

This book is written in a loose diary format over the course of a year as Elizabeth plans her garden. Being a part of the aristocracy, she cannot do any of the physical work. For this, she has gardeners, who don’t seem to last long under her employ.

Our narrator, Elizabeth, also has a passion for reading and books. She loved to be in her garden, alone and reading. My kind of person!! I loved her annoyances at guests who borrowed her books.

“Besides, they had a knack of finding out my favourite seats and lounging in them just when I longed to lounge myself; and they took books out of the library with them, and left them face downwards on the seats all night to get well drenched with dew, though they might have known that what is meat for roses is poison for books.”

As the year went on, she learned more and more through books and trial and error on managing her garden.

“ Humility, and the most patient perseverance, seem almost as necessary in gardening as rain and sunshine, and every failure must be used as a stepping stone to something better.”

Where her garden and books add to her joy, the same could not be afforded to her husband. She referred to him as “The Man of Wrath.” She had three little children, whom she referred to as the April baby, the May baby and the June baby. It didn’t appear she had much patience for them as well.

I love gardens and I love flowers, but I do not enjoy gardening so I was not inspired by all her gardening. She is a lovely writer for sure. I loved her book The Enchanted April and I look forward to reading more of her books.

3.5 Stars


Published: 1898

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).



Pomerania is an area in the northeast part of Germany and northwest part of Poland, on the south shores of the Baltic Sea. Random interesting trivia: it's also the home of Malbork Castle, the largest castle in the world:


This book is written in a loose diary form and doesn't have any plot to speak of; it's more like hanging out for a year with Elizabeth and her young family: a husband, called Man of Wrath for reasons not really readily apparent from the text, and three young daughters, ages 3-5, nicknamed the April, May and June babies. Visitors--some pleasant, some vastly irritating--come and go, or sometimes come and stay, even when Elizabeth would rather they just left. Frankly, Elizabeth really would rather everyone just left her alone so she could focus on her garden . . . not that Elizabeth really knows all that much about gardening, but she is determined to learn, and she loves being surrounded by flowers.

I appreciated Elizabeth's passion for nature. If you're a gardening lover, you'll probably love this. In this book you will be frequently confronted with paragraphs like this one:

I wish the years would pass quickly that will bring my garden to perfection! The Persian Yellows have gone into their new quarters, and their place is occupied by the tearose Safrano; all the rose beds hare carpeted with pansies sown in July and transplanted in October, each bed having a separate colour. The purple ones are the most charming and go well with every rose, but I have white ones with Laurette Messimy, and yellow ones with Safrano, and a new red sort in the big centre bed of red roses. . . .

If this sort of language brings a thrill to your heart, you really need to read this book. Personally I sort of tolerated this kind of botanical rhapsodizing because (a) the book is so short (not much over 100 pages on my Kindle), and (b) Elizabeth pretty much gives equal time to talking--and sometimes snarking--about her family, visitors, and life in general, and she can be extremely funny.

These despicable but irritating [mosquitoes] don't seem to have anything to do but to sit in multitudes on the sand, waiting for any prey Providence may send them; and as soon as the carriage appears they rise up in a cloud, and rush to meet us, almost dragging us out bodily, and never leave us until we drive away again. The sudden view of the sea from the messy, pine-covered height directly above it where we picnic; the wonderful stretch of lonely shore with the forest to the water's edge; the coloured sails in the blue distance; the freshness, the brightness, the vastness—all is lost upon the picnickers, and made worse than indifferent to them, by the perpetual necessity they are under of fighting these horrid creatures. It is nice being the only person who ever goes there or shows it to anybody, but if more people went, perhaps the mosquitoes would be less lean, and hungry, and pleased to see us. It has, however, the advantage of being a suitable place to which to take refractory visitors when they have stayed too long, or left my books out in the garden all night, or otherwise made their presence a burden too grievous to be borne; then one fine hot morning when they are all looking limp, I suddenly propose a picnic on the Baltic. I have never known this proposal fail to be greeted with exclamations of surprise and delight. "The Baltic! You never told us you were within driving distance? How heavenly to get a breath of sea air on a day like this! The very thought puts new life into one! And how delightful to see the Baltic! Oh, please take us!" And then I take them.

Elizabeth von Arnim liberally sprinkles her stories with German words and phrases that she doesn't bother translating, so I got to play German translator for our group read. Like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I love to be of use. :) My German translations are at the end of this review.

Elizabeth's husband pops into the story from time to time. Occasionally he goes off into pompous lectures about the frailties and shortcomings of women. He seems to be doing it with tongue in cheek, just to tease his wife or bait the women listening to him, but I did find myself wondering just how much he really meant it, and these parts were irritating to read. So minus a star for those sections and for the parts when the gardening trivialities and minutiae made my eyes glaze over. But overall this is an enjoyable short novel about an unusual, intelligent, literate woman and her dislikes and passions, and a charming glimpse into a time long ago and far away.

"I don't love things that will only bear the garden for three or four months in the year and require coaxing and petting for the rest of it. Give me a garden full of strong, healthy creatures, able to stand roughness and cold without dismally giving in and dying. I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty, either in plants or women."

3 1/2 stars. Buddy read with Jeannette, Hana and Carolien.

German translations (with apologies for any errors):
sebr (typo in Gutenberg edition; should be "sehr") anspruchlos = very undemanding
Noch ein dummes Frauenzimmer! = Another stupid female! ("Frauenzimmer" literally means "women's room;" it's an archaic, rather derogatory expression for a woman)
unangenehme = unpleasant
Die war doch immer verdreht = She was always nutty/crazy
Gasthof = an inn
Backfisch = an immature, adolescent girl (literally "baked fish")
Unsinn = nonsense
Fetzt (typo, should be "Jetzt") halte ich dich aber fest = Now I'm holding you, but tight! or (more loosely) Now I've got you but good!
das Praktische = the practical
Warte nur, wenn ich dich erst habe! = Just wait until I get hold of you!
Frisur = hairdo
Diesmal wirst du mir aber nicht entschlupfen! = This time you won't escape me!
Kreuzzeitung = The Neue Preußische Zeitung ("New Prussian Newspaper"), a German newspaper printed in Berlin from 1848–1939. It was known as the Kreuzzeitung ("Cross Newspaper") because its emblem was an Iron Cross (per Wikipedia).
Trost in Trauer = consolation in grief
Auge um Auge, Zahn um Zahn = eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth
Hebe dich weg von mir, Sohn des Satans! = Get thee away from me, son of Satan! (this is a loose translation because literally "hebe dich" means "lift yourself")
wenn du schreist, kneife ich dich bis du platzt = if you yell/cry, I'll pinch you until you burst
Will Satan mich verschlingen, so lass die Engel singen Hallelujah! = Satan wants to devour me, so let the angels sing Hallelujah!
Spickgans = smoked breast of goose (a northern German dish)
entzückend, reizend, herrlich, wundervoll and süss = adorable, delightful, splendid, wonderful and sweet (I added the umlauts; the Gutenberg copy is missing them.)
Geburtstagkind = birthday child
Schlass (typo, should be Schloss) = manor house or mansion (in other contexts it means "castle," but I don't think that's what was intended here)
alter Esel = old ass (as in donkey)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I totally shared Elizabeth's obsession with plants, although resources do not allow me to purchase as extravagantly at Elizabeth. Additionally, her love of nature and attitude toward life, death, friends, books and boring chit-chat make me think the two of us could have been great friends.

After reading the first several pages, I thought I would love this book: an introspective introvert shamelessly lives the way she wants to, spending all day, every day in her garden.

But as I read more, I became annoyed with the way she avoided all responsibility, and a little disgusted by her privilege ("Oh, I wish so much I could actually dig in my garden, but of course I'm not allowed to do that." "The kids are getting annoying now, time to give them back to their nurses.").

The drawn-out garden descriptions and plans I could deal with (skimming over them was easy enough), and the parts that involve other people are mildly interesting, but I just couldn't stand Elizabeth. I read about half before I gave up on her.

Where I got the book: purchased on Kindle.

"I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved, and that I may grow in grace, and patience, and cheerfulness, just like the happy flowers I so much love."

This little gem of a book, the first novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim I had read, both delighted and intrigued me. It is about a woman called Elizabeth who has moved, with her husband and children, to their country estate in a remote part of Germany. Elizabeth dislikes the indoors with its responsibilities, servants and other interruptions, and spends most of the time reading in her garden. 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. I got a very sharp impression of the restrictions on a lady's life in the late 1800s.

In describing her garden, Elizabeth gives the reader glimpses of her own past and present, and of her husband (dubbed "the Man of Wrath") and her "babies," her three young daughters. It occurred to me at some point that if Elizabeth Von Arnim had been alive today, this would not have been a novel but a blog, because that's exactly what it resembles. As a novel it really doesn't have a whole lot of structure, but its charm comes precisely from the juxtaposition of the freedom and beauty of the natural world with that of a wealthy aristocrat who cannot escape all of her duties.

Elizabeth Von Arnim was evidently a very cosmopolitan woman, and that shows in the novel. In fact, from reading the novel I would have thought her an aristocratic German raised, as many were, by English and French governesses. We tend to forget that the Gilded Age society was extremely well traveled and spoke several languages. But I read in her biographical note that the novel is "semi-autobiographical" and maybe this is one way in which the author distances herself from the text. That's what intrigued me, and if I can find a biography of Von Arnim that untangles truth from fiction, I'll definitely read it.

After the initial chapters which are more about the garden than anything else, there is a wonderful November chapter in which Elizabeth returns to her father's house, a train ride away, and deciding not to call upon the cousins who inherited the property (which was entailed, meaning that she lost her father and her home at the same time) wanders around the garden in the damp fog. The episode ends splendidly when she thinks she has encountered her own ghost.

Then follows a winter episode where Elizabeth has to entertain two guests, a close friend and a woman foisted upon her. Here we see the more acid, worldly side of Elizabeth, and learn more about the Man of Wrath who has evidently earned his nickname. Even though it could reasonably be claimed that Elizabeth acted very bitchily toward her unwanted guest, I did find myself sympathizing with her.

This edition did have a few errors, especially in the rendering of the German words with which Von Arnim liberally sprinkles her prose. Readers who do not know German might want to look for a footnoted edition with translations, or have an electronic translator handy.

I have downloaded the next book, n  The Solitary Summern. I think I've become a fan.

Elizabeth von Arnim's first book published in 1899 and still, perfection for today. Smart, witty, she calls her husband "Man of Wrath." You will love this book.

Has there ever been an author/protagonist that you loved...but that you weren't sure others would love...so that you felt compelled to defend her...before anyone else had even said anything?...

For me, this is one of those books! I adore Elizabeth, both the author and the protagonist. However, I do get the sense that, being privileged, being sheltered, and being solitary, besides, she wasn't always aware of how she sounded. It's not me judging her, mind you. It's those awful people...that I made up.

I, myself, couldn't have enjoyed this book more. It's so personal, so musical. It has that sweet, lilting quality that I appreciated so much from Dorothy Edwards. But where Dorothy displayed promise, Elizabeth fully achieved her vision.

But I must confess to having felt sometimes quite crushed when some grand person, examining the details of my home through her eyeglass, and coolly dissecting all that I so much prize from the convenient distance of the open window, has finished up by expressing sympathy with my loneliness, and on my protesting that I like it, has murmured, "sebr anspruchslos." Then indeed I have felt ashamed of the fewness of my wants; but only for a moment, and only under the withering influence of the eyeglass; for, after all, the owner's spirit is the same spirit as that which dwells in my servants--girls whose one idea of happiness is to live in a town where there are others of their sort with whom to drink beer and dance on Sunday afternoons. The passion for being for ever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible. I can entertain myself quite well for weeks together, hardly aware, except for the pervading peace, that I have been alone at all. Not but what I like to have people staying with me for a few days, or even for a few weeks, should they be as anspruchslos as I am myself, and content with simple joys; only, any one who comes here and would be happy must have something in him; if he be a mere blank creature, empty of head and heart, he will very probably find it dull. I should like my house to be often full if I could find people capable of enjoying themselves. They should be welcomed and sped with equal heartiness; for truth compels me to confess that, though it pleases me to see them come, it pleases me just as much to see them go.

On some very specially divine days, like today, I have actually longed for some one else to be here to enjoy the beauty with me. There has been rain in the night, and the whole garden seems to be singing--not the untiring birds only, but the vigorous plants, the happy grass and trees, the lilac bushes--oh, those lilac bushes! They are all out to-day, and the garden is drenched with the scent. I have brought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory, and the servants think there is going to be a party and are extra nimble, and I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without; and the servants gradually discover that there is no party, and wonder why the house should be filled with flowers for one woman by herself, and I long more and more for a kindred spirit-- it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself--but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon. It is true that my garden is full of friends, only they are--dumb.

If only I could write back to her!

This was a beautifully written book that was ever so appropriate for me to read since Spring is here. Elizabeth through her garden gives us a look inside not only its environs, but also a look into her life as the wife of a German Count. The book's words bring the reader a sense of peace and tranquility so well as Elizabeth finds and makes us remember the beauty of nature to be found right outside our doors.

Written as a diary of sorts, Mrs von Arnim, an author I must be read of, lets us step into her life and that of her husband and children. She adores her garden and finds herself always rewarded by its growth and beauty. Her inside life, that of being the Count's wife does not seem to bring her much joy, so it is through her life outside that she finds her happiness. Calling her children by the months they were born added a type of physical nature to the book. I loved the way she adored them as she adored the flowers that she cultivated.

If you love the things that nature reveals to you each Spring than probably you would truly enjoy this book. It is short, beautifully written and expressed, and the story it tells is one that all of us who enjoy nature will love.

L’uomo della collera
Amo i giardini e il libro è di piacevole lettura, ricercando in rete le immagini dei fiori nominati nelle pagine mi sono rifatta gli occhi. Mi ha fatto un po’ sorridere e un po’ impressione il candore dell’autrice nell’esposizione della sua condizione privilegiata: il marito (detto “l’uomo della collera”) doveva trattare coi fattori e i fattori coi contadini che per pochi soldi cambiavano padrone o addirittura se ne tornavano in Russia a vedere la famiglia, mentre lei, nel salotto privato, si intratteneva a consultare i cataloghi per l’acquisto delle piante: 100 rose di una varietà, 100 di un’altra, 10 sacchi da mille bulbi di tulipani, 10 sacchi da mille bulbi di giaggioli. Ma perché mai per pochi soldi questi braccianti dovevano cambiare padrone, lasciandola inerme in mezzo alle aiuole da allestire?
Poi vennero un paio di guerre a calpestare le aiuole.

I think this book will be loved by gardening lovers. It just wasn't exactly for me.
It was written in a charming way going through a year of Von Arnim's life that she spent in an estate with a garden while she was learning and enjoying gardening.
The long descriptions of flowers, garden, nature, etc just didn't make a story for me. But I appreciated her humor that she threw here and there.

After all, it's a well written book and I'll try Von Arnim's other books.