In 1901 the ‘real’ Elizabeth holidayed on the Baltic island of Rugen with just her maid, a coachman, a carriage piled with luggage, and a woman friend. From such unpromising beginnings Elizabeth weaves a captivating farrago around her encounters. There’s the snobbish bishop’s wife and her personable, handsome son, a dressmaker and, astonishingly, a long-lost cousin – Charlotte – who is trying to evade the pursuit of her husband, the maddeningly genial old professor.

Here, with delightfully astringent humour, Elizabeth recounts the misadventures that befall her. And, as she immortalised her Pomeranian wilderness in the famous ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN, she now writes enticingly of this remote and attractive island.