Elizabeth von Arnim course 2025

Elizabeth von Arnim was one of the great satirists of the early 20th century. Her gift as a comic writer was to serve rather difficult truths about men and women with a light hand – her books can be funny and devastating in equal measure. No wonder, perhaps, that von Arnim preferred dogs for companions over lovers and husbands in her later years. 

This lecture series will look at von Arnim’s prescient and often hilarious observations about the joys and pitfalls of female emancipation, the failings of toxic masculinity, the funny and the dangerous sides of marriage and the liberating effects of embracing old age. 

And there will be dogs because in von Arnim's words, ‘though parents, husbands, children, lovers and friends are all very well, they are not dogs’. On this, as on many other things, von Arnim was undoubtedly right. 

This course will be taught by two leading experts on von Arnim: Isobel Maddison, retired Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, and Juliane Römhild of LaTrobe University.

We meet live online fortnightly for a lecture and seminar; one book per session. A rare chance to study this brilliant author in depth with two brilliant lecturers.