The Enchanted April (Pocketbook Classics Unabridged Annotated Edition with Recipes inspired by the novel and film)

By Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Vonarnim

Book Overview

The Enchanted April is Elizabeth von Arnim's most beloved novel, a story about four women - all strangers - who step away from their ordinary lives for a month in Italy and rediscover themselves, their independence, and the happiness they'd stopped expecting.

First published in 1922, von Arnim's masterpiece appears here in a new Pocketbook Classics edition, complete with recipes inspired by the novel. This unabridged version invites readers to do what the story itself encourages: slow down, spend time with those who matter most, and linger a little longer.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1969043091
• ISBN13: 9781969043093
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Pocketbook Press
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Did you ever want to get away from it all?

Over the years, some people have become more fun and interesting. On the other hand, some become staunch and passionless. Seems that Lottie picked the latter to marry. One day at her club, she sees an a-d-v-e-r-t-i-s-e-m-e-n-t to rent an Italian villa for a month. She shows this to a friend, Rose, and offers to share the cost. This leads to four women with different backgrounds sharing the cost of a great adventure at the beautiful Italian villa "San Salvatore." The story is well written and was made into a good play, as it has all the elements of understanding and misunderstanding needed for a good play. Even some explosive scenes. There, all the characters, looking for a retreat from life, find each other again, for some the first time. You will find yourself wanting to join in. Do not overlook the two movies with the same title.

Enchanting

Having loved both filmed versions of this story, I came to the book not anticipating any surprises, and in that respect I was correct. What I did get, however, was a more fully-formed understanding of each of the four women who come to San Salvatore. Each has her own quest, and each is surprised in the way that her quest is resolved. Elizabeth von Arnim can harness language in ways that few other authors are able. She is, for instance, able to display what a walking joke Mr. Wilkins is, while letting him think that he's the very model of an educated man. I started off loathing both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester in a way that wasn't true when watching the films. This made their transformations that much more satisfying, in the end. I'm now interested in reading other books from Elizabeth von Arnim and, even more importantly, visiting the castello where the story is based. She wrote The Enchanted April after her own visit, and it has continued to "enchant" travelers in the many years since the publication of her novel. I can't wait to see the "tub of love" and be surrounded by wistaria myself.

Grace abounding

Always celebrated for its beautiful evocative setting in Portofino, THE ENCHANTED APRIL has also to some extent been dismissed as a sentimental trifle. It is not: for all its surface charm, it is also one of the most searching fictional works ever written on the nature of goodness, and its effects upon selfishness and acquisitiveness. Two Hampstead housewives, Rose Arbuthnot and Lottie Hawkins, advertise for two other women to share in the costs so that they may rent an Italian castle for the month of April and escape their loveless lives; when they and the other two women (the dazzling Lady Caroline Dester and the rigid bluestocking Mrs. Fisher) arrive at the spectacularly lovely castle, they begin to discover that not only have their spirits been refreshed but also that their value systems have changed through what amounts to the dispensation of the castle of a kind of secularized grace. Elizabeth von Arnim accomplishes this very probing study of modern British mores through the very subtle and unobtrusive psychological realist use of extended interior monologues. The result is a novel that is not only completely beguiling but actually quite thoughtful. A greatly underappreciated little gem.

A castle in Italy

The lure of Italy, particularly during a dismal, rainy day elsewhere, is hard to resist. For four British women, the attraction brings them to San Salvatore, a Tuscan villa, for an entire month of vacation.The women are very different. Lotty Wilkins, nervous and talkative, is treated like a child by her husband and is starting to chafe from his oppression. Rose Arbuthnot, with a "face like a disappointed madonna," is pious, sweet, and desperately unhappy. Margaret Fisher, stern and demanding, lives in a past peppered with famous literary encounters. And Caroline Dester, striking beautiful and popular, is lonely and bored with her whirlwind social life. The four rent San Salvatore together, and immediately begin to change. Lotty loses her nervous demeanor, and becomes a self confident, mature woman. Rose blossoms when she realizes that she does possess beauty, and wins back the love of her formerly indifferent husband. Margaret thaws out and begins to smile and relax, even conversing with the other tenants, living in the present instead of the dusty past. And Caroline re-opens her heart to love and friendship by recognizing the emptiness of her life before she left for Italy.What is it that changes these women? Sun and rest in a beautiful place? Yes, partly, but mostly it is the friendship of three extraordinary people.I'd love to see this enjoyable novel brought back into print.