The Enchanted April
novel by Elizabeth von Arnim
The Enchanted April is a 1922 novel by British-Australian writer Elizabeth von Arnim. The work was inspired by a month-long holiday to the Italian Riviera and was probably the most widely read of her novels (as an English and American best seller in 1923).
Von Arnim wrote and set the book in the 15th century Castello Brown. Critic Terence de Vere White credited The Enchanted April with making the Italian resort of Portofino fashionable.
The novel is characterised by dry, tongue-in-cheek humour, witticisms, elaborate and olfactory descriptions of the flowers, such as wisteria, and the use of free indirect discourse.
Plot
The novel follows four distinctly dissimilar women in the early 1920s, who leave their rainy, grey environments (and husbands or suitors) to go on holiday in Italy, for a month of sunshine and quiet.
The novel begins in post–World War I London with Lotty Wilkins, a timid and unhappily married woman, seeing an advertisement offering a medieval castle on the Italian coast for rent during the month of April. Feeling starved of beauty and affection in her practical, emotionally distant marriage, Lotty impulsively decides she must go. Unable to afford the expense alone, she persuades Rose Arbuthnot, a pious and similarly dissatisfied acquaintance from her women's club, to share the cost.
To make the venture possible, they recruit two additional companions: Lady Caroline Dester, a beautiful, aloof socialite seeking refuge from relentless admirers, and Mrs Fisher, an elderly widow who clings to memories of the Victorian era and her famous acquaintances.
“The Enchanted April” enters the record as novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Enchanted, April and novel can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Enchanted April” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Enchanted, April and novel provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18187988. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922 and 1923.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Enchanted April” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.