The Benefactress

Orphan Anna’s life is changed for the better when she inherits an estate from her maternal uncle. Kind and intelligent, Anna decides to pass on some of her wealth by setting up a home for twelve women who have been mistreated throughout their life. These twelve women will be freed from financial worries, and will therefore not need to marry. Instead, they will be able to live in a place of natural beauty, forming a group of friends. Her goal is to make the women happy but achieving that may be harder than imagined... ‘The Benefactress’ by Elizabeth von Arnim is a humorous historical fiction classic that will be enjoyed by fans of ‘Great Expectations’. 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.