Four Englishwomen who barely know each other answer a newspaper advertisement for a small medieval castle in Italy and take it for the month of April. What the wisteria does to them is the whole plot. Von Arnim wrote the book after renting such a castle at Portofino herself, and it sold enormously, above all in America. Fifty-nine plates of seascapes, quiet interiors and London streets by painters including Walter Sickert and Giovanni Fattori, 1795 to 1925, echo the novel's own movement from grey England to the Italian shore.
