ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that Love and In a Summer Season are sophisticated comedies of age in the sense of both content and narrative technique, depicting the marriage of middle-aged women to younger men with a particularly mature, experienced comedic voice that combines sympathy with worldly detachment and knowing irony. In common with most von Arnim's novels, Love is the story of a romance, but does not follow the generically typical structure of the romantic comedy: the consequences of Catherine's second marriage are as significant as the romance that precedes it. Love is structured in two parts: in the first Catherine's relationship with Christopher is a source of joy and laughter; in the second they marry and Catherine loses her sense of humour. In a Summer Season is the story of Kate, a 'recognizable Elizabeth Taylor heroine', who like Catherine is middle-aged and upper-middle-class, has servants and very little to do.
