Vera (novel)
Encyclopedia
Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim
is a black comedy
based on her disastrous second marriage to Earl Russell: a mordant analysis of the romantic delusions through which wives acquiesce in husbands' tyrannies. In outline the story of this utterly unromantic novel anticipates DuMaurier's Rebecca. Naive Lucy Entwhistle is swept into marriage by widower, Everard Wemyss. His mansion "The Willows" is pervaded by the spectre of his dead wife Vera, with whom Lucy becomes obsessed. ... Here the servants are partisan for both wives, and lose no opportunity to disrupt Everard's unctuous, oppressive household routines. An extraordinarily black vision of marriage, also continuously funny, the novel's power lies in the wit and economy of the usually prolix Von Arnim.
(1983) ISBN 0-86068-316-8 (2000) ISBN 2-264-02389-9
Transposed blurb from Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, blurb by Anthea Trodd at Keele University.
It is not easy to get hold of copies of the 1983 edition of this book (only available in the UK).
However an electronic version is available at The Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/details/veraarni00arniuoft
Elizabeth von Arnim
Elizabeth von Arnim , born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an Australian-born British novelist. By marriage she became Gräfin von Arnim-Schlagenthin, and by a second marriage, Countess Russell...
is a black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
based on her disastrous second marriage to Earl Russell: a mordant analysis of the romantic delusions through which wives acquiesce in husbands' tyrannies. In outline the story of this utterly unromantic novel anticipates DuMaurier's Rebecca. Naive Lucy Entwhistle is swept into marriage by widower, Everard Wemyss. His mansion "The Willows" is pervaded by the spectre of his dead wife Vera, with whom Lucy becomes obsessed. ... Here the servants are partisan for both wives, and lose no opportunity to disrupt Everard's unctuous, oppressive household routines. An extraordinarily black vision of marriage, also continuously funny, the novel's power lies in the wit and economy of the usually prolix Von Arnim.
(1983) ISBN 0-86068-316-8 (2000) ISBN 2-264-02389-9
Transposed blurb from Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, blurb by Anthea Trodd at Keele University.
It is not easy to get hold of copies of the 1983 edition of this book (only available in the UK).
However an electronic version is available at The Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/details/veraarni00arniuoft