When Mary Beauchamp, a musical young woman from a middle class family in Sydney married a German count, she became Elizabeth von Arnim. Soon disenchanted with marriage and motherhood, she shut herself away at her country estate and began writing bestselling books about her garden and the society around her. 

She continued to write while married to her wayward second husband, Lord Russell, and had an affair with HG Wells and a young man half her age, while entertaining lavishly at her Swiss chalet.

Elizabeth also had an often spiky relationship with her cousin Katherine Mansfield. 

Although she is known as a light romantic satirist, she touches on darker themes of domestic violence and the desires of older women.

Joyce Morgan’s biography  brings von Arnim to life through extensive research into her diaries and letters. The Countess from Kirribilli reads like fairy tale, farce and psychological drama in a narrative that never loses momentum.

Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production

Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey

Audio Editing: Louise Osbourne

Music: Amanda Brown

www.carolinebaum.com.au

All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

When Mary Beauchamp, a musical young woman from a middle class family in Sydney married a German count, she became Elizabeth von Arnim. Soon disenchanted with marriage and motherhood, she shut herself away at her country estate and began writing bestselling books about her garden and the society around her.&nbsp;
She continued to write while married to her wayward second husband, Lord Russell, and had an affair with HG Wells and a young man half her age, while entertaining lavishly at her Swiss chalet.
Elizabeth also had an often spiky relationship with her cousin Katherine Mansfield.&nbsp;
Although she is known as a light romantic satirist, she touches on darker themes of domestic violence and the desires of older women.
Joyce Morgan&rsquo;s biography&nbsp; brings von Arnim to life through extensive research into her diaries and letters. The Countess from Kirribilli reads like fairy tale, farce and psychological drama in a narrative that never loses momentum.
Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production
Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey
Audio Editing: Louise Osbourne
Music: Amanda Brown
www.carolinebaum.com.au
All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person’s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or
unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person&rsquo;s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

Life Sentences Podcast

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviewsseasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person’s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviewsseasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person&rsquo;s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

Life Sentences

COUNTESS ANONYMOUS: Joyce Morgan on Elizabeth Von Arnim

For decades, Kitty Kelley has held the reputation as the queen of celebrity biography in the US, writing juicy and revealing accounts of the lives of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, The Bush family, Nancy Reagan etc.

 

Now in her eighties, she reflects on how she got started as a journalist in Washington DC, and reveals some of the tricks and techniques that she used to get reliable sources to talk to her while avoiding prosecution from her powerful subjects. In this candid and revealing conversation she talks about the rewards and downsides of a unique career as the world’s bestselling biographer.

For decades, Kitty Kelley has held the reputation as the queen of celebrity biography in the US, writing juicy and revealing accounts of the lives of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, The Bush family, Nancy Reagan etc.
&nbsp;
Now in her eighties, she reflects on how she got started as a journalist in Washington DC, and reveals some of the tricks and techniques that she used to get reliable sources to talk to her while avoiding prosecution from her powerful subjects. In this candid and revealing conversation she talks about the rewards and downsides of a unique career as the world&rsquo;s bestselling biographer.

The Queen of Celebrity

Donald Horne was Australia’s leading public intellectual in the sixties and seventies and coined the phrase The Lucky Country in his bestselling book of the same title. The phrase has entered the Australian vernacular, and is often misused and interpreted as a sign of national complacency.



Before he became an author, Horne had tried on many hats: as a journalist, ad man, and editor; later he became an academic and a bureaucrat. The big story in his life was his political shift from the conservative right to the progressive left, thanks to his enthusiasm for Gough Whitlam’s vision of Australia’s potential.



Famous for his love of a long lunch (especially when he was the editor of the Bulletin), he was indeed lucky to find in his second wife Myfanwy a partner who was a true collaborator in all his ideas.



Ryan Cropp’s energetic debut biography captures the paradoxes and many-faceted ambitions of the man and his times.

Donald Horne was Australia’s leading public intellectual in the sixties and seventies and coined the phrase The Lucky Country in his bestselling book of the same title. The phrase has entered the Australian vernacular, and is often misused and interpreted as a sign of national complacency.
 
Before he became an author, Horne had tried on many hats: as a journalist, ad man, and editor; later he became an academic and a bureaucrat. The big story in his life was his political shift from the conservative right to the progressive left, thanks to his enthusiasm for Gough Whitlam’s vision of Australia’s potential.
 
Famous for his love of a long lunch (especially when he was the editor of the Bulletin), he was indeed lucky to find in his second wife Myfanwy a partner who was a true collaborator in all his ideas.
 
Ryan Cropp’s energetic debut biography captures the paradoxes and many-faceted ambitions of the man and his times.

Lucky

There has never been anyone like Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev.



The Russian impresario shook up the dusty world of ballet, making it the centre of the avant garde in the early part of the twentieth century, especially in Paris where the premieres of L’Apres Midi ‘D’un Faune and the Rite of Spring caused shock and scandal.



Born in a provincial backwater, Diaghilev made his way to St Petersburg with ambitions as a painter and composer, but failed at both. Eventually he discovered that his talents were more curatorial and, after bringing Russian art to Paris, he returned with The Ballets Russes, a troupe of brilliant dancers, including Nijinski, and gorgeous sets and costumes, taking the city by storm.



Collaborating with artists like Picasso and Stravinsky, Diaghilev changed the face of dance forever. He defined the word impresario in a unique way, discovering talent, finding the money to stage lavish productions and generating huge audience excitement, in a dizzying feat of risk-taking and flair.



In this episode, British cultural critic Rupert Christensen discusses his book Diaghilev’s Empire, about the impact, influence and legacy of a larger than life individual who loved Russia but was condemned by history to a life in exile.

There has never been anyone like Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev.
 
The Russian impresario shook up the dusty world of ballet, making it the centre of the avant garde in the early part of the twentieth century, especially in Paris where the premieres of L’Apres Midi ‘D’un Faune and the Rite of Spring caused shock and scandal.
 
Born in a provincial backwater, Diaghilev made his way to St Petersburg with ambitions as a painter and composer, but failed at both. Eventually he discovered that his talents were more curatorial and, after bringing Russian art to Paris, he returned with The Ballets Russes, a troupe of brilliant dancers, including Nijinski, and gorgeous sets and costumes, taking the city by storm.
 
Collaborating with artists like Picasso and Stravinsky, Diaghilev changed the face of dance forever. He defined the word impresario in a unique way, discovering talent, finding the money to stage lavish productions and generating huge audience excitement, in a dizzying feat of risk-taking and flair.
 
In this episode, British cultural critic Rupert Christensen discusses his book Diaghilev’s Empire, about the impact, influence and legacy of a larger than life individual who loved Russia but was condemned by history to a life in exile.

COUNTESS ANONYMOUS: Joyce Morgan on Elizabeth Von Arnim

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