Event 19: Only Happiness Here

Artist: Gabrielle Carey

Host: Caroline Baum

Elizabeth von Arnim is one of the early twentieth century’s most famous – and almost forgotten – authors. She was ahead of her time in her understanding of women and their often thwarted pursuit of happiness. Born in Sydney in the mid-1800s, she went on to write many internationally bestselling novels, marry a Prussian Count and then an English Lord, develop close friendships with H.G. Wells and E.M. Forster, and raise five children. Her biographer, Gabrielle Carey, found herself writing more than this extraordinary women’s story. Writing Only Happiness Here became a journey into the heart of our perennial obsession with finding joy.