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The charming, slyly comic novel of romantic longing and transformation that inspired the Oscar-nominated film.
Four very different women escape the monotony of dreary London for the sunshine of Italy in a medieval castle on the Mediterranean. As each blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring, they encounter unexpected friendship, personal growth, and heartwarming romance.
An immediate bestseller upon its first publication in 1922, The Enchanted April set off a craze for tourism to the Italian Riviera that continues today. This witty ensemble piece explores new beginnings, happiness, and the power of nature.
Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/16/2026)
I just finished The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim for our neighborhood book club. I've read it before and seen the film and it was still wonderful this time around. I plan to read more of her books i...
-Evonne_Benedict
"Brims with magic and laughter." —The Guardian
"[One] of the wittiest novels in the English language ... The ultimate renter's novel: a month in and out of a gorgeous place where extraordinary things happen; then let someone else deal with the plumbing ... It's a confection, it's a dream, it's a fleeting April romance, but oh, how hard to get this story out of your head... . No one can come away from this April without thinking, even for just a moment, that the course of true love, unsmooth as it may run, is certainly worth taking." —Brenda Bowen, author of Enchanted August, from the Introduction
This information about The Enchanted April was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elizabeth von Arnim (1866–1941), a cousin of the writer Katharine Mansfield and a lover of H. G. Wells, wrote more than twenty books. Born in Australia, she spent most of her childhood in England and lived also in Germany, Switzerland, and France. She moved to the United States at the start of World War II and died in Charleston, South Carolina.
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