Elizabeth and Her German Garden

Book: Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Finished: March, 2009
Pages: 250
Challenges:
** 18th & 19th Century Women Authors Challenge
** New Author Challenge
** Read and Review Challenge
** Read Your Name Challenge
** Themed Reading Challenge
** 20 in 2009
** Victorian Challenge
** Winter Reading Challenge

First Sentence: "May 7th--I love my garden."

Last Sentence: " I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved, and that I may grow in grace, and patience and cheerfulness, just like the happy flowers I so much love."

Synopsis (from Barnes and Noble)

Elizabeth and Her German Garden was the first book published by author Elizabeth Von Arnim. Originally published in 1898, the semi-autobiographical novel written about a rural idyll became a highly successful book which was subsequently reprinted twenty-one times within its first year. This witty and sacrcastic novel has kept the attention of readers for over a century, and once you read this title for the first time, you will be unable to stop rereading it for many years to come.

This was delightful. The author offers up doses of wit and sarcasm as she exposes her observations of human nature as well as sharing her love of her beautiful garden with the reader.

Quotes:

(written on September 15th): "There is a feeling about this month that reminds me of March and the early days of April, when spring is still hesitating on the threshold and the garden holds its breath in expectation."

(frustration at as a woman being prohibited from actually doing the physical labor of gardening and being forced to hire a gardener) : " It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple."