![]() ![]() It was here that she met the German Graf (Count) Henning von Arnim who made love to her on top of the Duomo in Florence. She studied at the Royal College of Music and, on a visit to Italy, played for Liszt’s daughter Cosima Wagner. Like Katherine Mansfield, Mary Beauchamp was a musical prodigy, she played the piano and the organ to high professional standards. ‘Elizabeth’ was born in Australia to an English father and an Australian mother, christened Mary Beachamp, and brought to England at the age of three, but her father had a habit of wandering around Europe, so she saw quite a bit of Italy, France and Switzerland during her childhood. Both were writers, both lived in permanent exile, and both struggled with questions of identity and belonging. ![]() ![]() I was struck, reading this biography, by the number of parallels between ‘Elizabeth’ von Arnim and her cousin Katherine Mansfield. ![]()
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