In the stiflingly conservative society of the 1920s, four completely mismatched Englishwomen make the daring decision to take a vacation alone in Italy, leaving behind the dark London and their gloomy daily lives.

Mrs. Wilkins, a young housewife who lives an unhappy life beside a once-charismatic lawyer, finds an unexpected ally in the pious Mrs. Arbuthnot, who has distanced herself from her husband who earns a living writing what she considers indecent novels. The two women decide to rent a medieval castle together and spend April on the sunny Italian coast, without their husbands.

The eccentric quartet is completed by the elderly Mrs. Fisher, a cantankerous upper-class woman who lives with memories of past glories, and the young beauty and aristocrat Lady Caroline Dester, who seeks refuge away from her would-be suitors.

In an early revolutionary novel for its feminist views, the widely-read British author Elizabeth von Arnim breaks all the stereotypes of the time, highlighting the deadlocks of a strictly patriarchal, religious society, where both men and women seem to suffer within their predetermined social roles.

Enchanted April is not a saccharine emotional romance - its literary ancestor can be found in the delicate dissectors of emotional bonds like Marivaux. Von Arnim crafts a sensitive novel of impressive depth and exquisitely sculpted characters about the redemptive and transformative power of love.