The curious case of Christine: Elizabeth von Arnim's war-time text

Abstract

Elizabeth von Arnim wrote Christine (1917) during the Great War under the pseudonym, Alice Cholmondeley. As an English woman married to Count Henning von Arnim-Schlagenthin, a Prussian Junker, in the years immediately before the First World War, von Arnim's writing offers particular insights into the culture and politics of the pre-war period and in the midst of the Great War. Nevertheless, her work has been largely unexplored. When Christine appeared, however, the book became the subject of sustained critical interest in both Britain and the United States. There were many, for instance, who considered the book a compelling and valuable first person account of life in Berlin at the outbreak of war. Others thought the book ‘remarkable’ and significant – a judgement that reflects the wider literary preoccupations and fascinating publishing contexts of the time, some of which remained secret during the First World War, but that are examined in detail here.