The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim – #ABookADayInMay – Day 11

When I was looking through my Virago Modern Classics bookcase to see if I had anything that would work for this month, I was pleased to see that The Solitary Summer (1899), though about 190 pages, had such an enormous font that it would be pretty easy to get through in a day. The Solitary Summer is a sequel to Elizabeth and Her German Garden, the debut novel (/autofiction?) that was an enormous success and made Elizabeth von Arnim’s name. Or, rather, didn’t make her name. She remained anonymous on her books, which were subsequently published as being ‘by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden‘, and ‘Elizabeth von Arnim’ was a concoction created, I believe, by Virago in the 1980s. I courted controversy when I ranked Elizabeth von Arnim’s books by putting Elizabeth and Her German Garden in last place. You know what, I stand by it, but I should add that I’ve liked all of her books. For me, it lacks the spark and irony of her better books – though a lot of that was present in the…