[2] She was born at her family's home on Kirribilli Point in Sydney, Australia, to Henry Herron Beauchamp (1825–1907), a wealthy shipping merchant, and Elizabeth (nicknamed Louey) Weiss Lassetter (1836–1919).

[5] Mansfield, ill with tuberculosis, lived in the Montana region of Switzerland (now Crans-Montana) from May 1921 until January 1922, renting the Chalet des Sapins with her husband John Middleton Murry from June 1921.

[8] On 21 February 1891, Elizabeth married the widowed German aristocrat Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin [de] (1851–1910) in London,[9] whom she had met on a tour of Italy with her father two years earlier.

[12] At the time of the 1901 United Kingdom census, on 1 April 1901, Arnim was in England, staying with her uncle Henry Beauchamp at The Retreat, Bexley, without any of her children.

[4] In 1916, the Arnims' daughter Felicitas, who had been at boarding schools in Switzerland and Germany, died of pneumonia aged sixteen in Bremen.

Frere, 26 years her junior, initially went to stay at the Chalet Soleil to catalogue her large library, and a romance ensued.

[2] She died of influenza at the Riverside Infirmary, Charleston, South Carolina, on 9 February 1941, aged 74, and was cremated at Fort Lincoln Cemetery, Maryland.

In 1947 her ashes were mingled with those of her brother, Sir Sydney Beauchamp, in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Tylers Green, Penn, Buckinghamshire.

[4] The Latin inscription on her tombstone reads parva sed apta (small but apt), alluding to her short stature.

Published anonymously, it chronicled the protagonist Elizabeth's struggles to create a garden on the family estate and her attempts to integrate into German aristocratic Junker society.

Some titles ensued that deal with protest against domineering Junkertum and witty observations of life in provincial Germany, including The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (1905) and Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907).

[25] Although Arnim never wrote a conventional autobiography, All the Dogs of My Life (1936), an account of her love for her pets, contains many glimpses of her glittering social circle.

[26] Arnim's 1921 novel Vera, a dark tragi-comedy drawing on her disastrous marriage to Earl Russell, was her most critically acclaimed work, described by John Middleton Murry as "Wuthering Heights by Jane Austen".

Terence de Vere White credits The Enchanted April with making the Italian resort of Portofino fashionable.

[30] Perhaps the best example of Arnim's mordant wit and unusual attitude to life is provided in one of her letters: "I'm so glad I didn't die on the various occasions I have earnestly wished I might, for I would have missed a lot of lovely weather.