In 1901, the author – the real Elizabeth – went on a trip to the Baltic island of Rügen with her maid, a chauffeur, a friend, and a carriage piled high with their luggage. From this, she weaves a captivating tale of her encounters in this semi-autobiographical novel. A snobbish bishop’s wife and her handsome son, a dressmaker, and a long-lost cousin Charlotte form the basis of this story, as Charlotte tries to evade the pursuit of her husband. Elizabeth von Arnim's humorous novel ‘The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen’ will be enjoyed by fans of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’. 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.

We first meet Elizabeth Ann on a big train, traveling all alone. Her father and mother have sailed for Japan, and she is sent back East to visit at first one relative's home, and then another. Of course, she meets many new friends, some of whom she is quite happy with, while others--but you must read the stories for yourself!Notice: This Book is published by Historical Books Limited (www.publicdomain.org.uk) as a Public Domain Book, if you have any inquiries, requests or need any help you can just send an email to [email protected] book is found as a public domain and free book based on various online catalogs, if you think there are any problems regard copyright issues please contact us immediately via [email protected]

From the award-winning historian and author of Revolutionary Mothers (“Incisive, thoughtful, spiced with vivid anecdotes. Don’t miss it.”—Thomas Fleming) and Civil War Wives (“Utterly fresh . . . Sensitive, poignant, thoroughly fascinating.”—Jay Winik), here is the remarkable life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, renowned as the most beautiful woman of nineteenth-century Baltimore, whose marriage in 1803 to Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political histories of the United States, France, and England. In Wondrous Beauty, Carol Berkin tells the story of this audacious, outsized life. We see how the news of the union infuriated Napoleon and resulted in his banning the then ­pregnant Betsy Bonaparte from disembarking in any European port, offering his brother the threat of remaining married to that “American girl” and forfeiting all wealth and power—or renouncing her, marrying a woman of Napoleon’s choice, and reaping the benefits. Jérôme ended the marriage posthaste and was made king of Westphalia; Betsy fled to England, gave birth to her son and only child, Jérôme’s namesake, and was embraced by the English press, who boasted that their nation had opened its arms to the cruelly abandoned young wife. Berkin writes that this naïve, headstrong American girl returned to Baltimore a wiser, independent woman, refusing to seek social redemption or a return to obscurity through a quiet marriage to a member of Baltimore’s merchant class. Instead she was courted by many, indifferent to all, and initiated a dangerous game of politics—a battle for a pension from Napoleon—which she won: her pension from the French government arrived each month until Napoleon’s exile. Using Betsy Bonaparte’s extensive letters, the author makes clear that the “belle of Baltimore” disdained America’s obsession with moneymaking, its growing ethos of democracy, and its rigid gender roles that confined women to the parlor and the nursery; that she sought instead a European society where women created salons devoted to intellectual life—where she was embraced by many who took into their confidence, such as Madame de Staël, Madame Récamier, the aging Marquise de Villette (goddaughter of Voltaire), among others—and where aristocracy, based on birth and breeding rather than commerce, dominated society. Wondrous Beauty is a riveting portrait of a woman torn between two worlds, unable to find peace in either—one a provincial, convention-bound new America; the other a sophisticated, extravagant Old World Europe that embraced freedoms, a Europe ultimately swallowed up by decadence and idleness. A stunning revelation of an extraordinary age.

Timid and small for her age, nine-year-old Elizabeth Ann discovers her own abilities and gains a new perception of the world around her when she goes to live with relatives on a farm in Vermont.

When Mother Seton brings her family and a new order of nuns to the village of Emmitsburg, Maryland in 1809, Kat and her friends help her bring the first order of American nuns and Catholic school to this country.