AustLit

'When I first went in search for Elizabeth von Arnim I got on a ferry. I thought, for once, I should do what proper biographers do and begin at the beginning – where she was born. Because so far, all three proper biographers had got it wrong. The first biographer, Elizabeth’s daughter, knew that her mother was born in Australia but wasn’t sure where. The second claimed she was born in New Zealand, presumably because she was from the same Beauchamp family as her cousin, Katherine Mansfield. And the third, and most recent, who had followed Elizabeth’s footsteps throughout Europe, but not her infant footsteps around Sydney Harbour, also misplaced her subject’s birthplace, describing it as ‘overlooking Rose Bay’ and and remarking ‘that the site of her birth is still known as Clifton Gardens.’'  (Introduction)