Vera - Elizabeth von Arnim

Based on her second marriage to Frank Russell and a pre-cursor to Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, this darkly comic, historical romance is the tale of a naïve young woman named Lucy Entwhistle. When Lucy marries a widower, she is swept under the power of her pathologically narcissistic husband. Her new husband’s mansion ‘The Willows’ is haunted by the spirit of his late wife, Vera, whom Lucy soon comes to suspect died by suicide because she no longer wanted to ensure being married to Everard Wemyss. ‘Vera’ is perfect for fans of Emily Brontë\'s ´Wuthering Heights´. Elizabeth von Arnim was an English novelist – a cousin of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield – born as Mary Annette Beauchamp in Australia in 1866. She married a German aristocrat and her earliest written works are set in Germany. Von Arnim launched her career as a writer with her satirical and semi-autobiographical work ‘Elizabeth and Her German Garden’, published anonymously in 1898. Although she was known by the name May in her early life, when she began writing, her success as ‘Elizabeth’ meant that her writings were ascribed to the name Elizabeth von Arnim.