The Pastor’s Wife is a novel by
Elizabeth von Arnim , first published in 1914. The story centers on Ingeborg Bullivant, a young Englishwoman who marries a German pastor, Johannes Niebuhr. Ingeborg is initially attracted to Johannes’s kind and gentle nature, but she soon finds herself trapped in a patriarchal household where she is expected to conform to traditional gender roles.
Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an English novelist. Born in Australia, she married a German aristocrat, and her earliest works are set in Germany. Her first marriage made her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and her second Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. After her first husband’s death, she had a three-year affair with the writer H. G. Wells, then later married Frank Russell, elder brother of the Nobel prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a cousin of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield. Though known in early life as May, her first book introduced her to readers as Elizabeth, which she eventually became to friends and finally to family. Her writings are ascribed to Elizabeth von Arnim. She used the pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley for only one novel, Christine, published in 1917.