The name Elizabeth von Arnim reveals and conceals so much of this often-forgotten author, writing at the beginning of the twentieth century. Married early to the German Count, Henning von Arnim, she became 'Elizabeth' as she escaped to her German garden and found beauty amidst an oppressive existence.

But this is really the story of Mary Beauchamp, the woman behind the mask, who would spend the rest of her life struggling to forge her own identity and follow an independent path. This is the story of an adventureer, a free spirit who travelled the world and found love with a much younger man, a woman who lived for music and writing, and who enjoyed the company of E.M. Forster, Hugh Walpole, H.G. Wells, her cousin Katherine Mansfield and Bertrand Russell.