'Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941) is perhaps Australia’s greatest literary export. Born in Kirribilli, she was extraordinarily successful in her lifetime, and was regularly compared to Jane Austen for her talent and wit. Yet, with the exception of those in on the secret, von Arnim’s novels have been almost entirely forgotten. Despite recent editions by the British Library, Oxford University Press, and Persephone Books (which specialises in neglected literature by and about women), it can still be difficult to track down copies of some of her twenty-one works. Accounts of her life, meanwhile, tend to focus on her marriages and affairs, and those of her circles whose fame proved more durable, including her cousin, Katherine Mansfield, and E.M. Forster, whom she employed to tutor her children.' (Introduction)
