Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

Marie Adelaïde Lowndes, née Belloc (August 5, 1868 – November 14, 1947), was a prolific English novelist.

Active from 1904 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. Her most famous novel, The Lodger (1913), based on the Jack the Ripper murders, has been adapted for the screen five different times; the first movie version was Alfred Hitchcock's silent film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), followed by Maurice Elvey's in 1932, John Brahm's in 1944, Man in the Attic in 1953, and David Ondaatje's in 2009. Another novel of hers, Letty Lynton (1931), was the basis for the 1932 motion picture of the same name starring Joan Crawford.

Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Mrs Belloc Lowndes was the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie Parkes. Her brother was Hilaire Belloc. Her paternal grandfather was the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc and her maternal great-grandfather was Joseph Priestley. In 1896 she married Frederic Sawrey Lowndes.

Her first novel, The Heart of Penelope, was published in 1904. From then on novels, reminiscences and plays came from her quill at the rate of one per year until 1946. In the novel, I, too, Have Lived in Arcadia, published in 1942, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes told the story of her mother's life, compiled largely from old family letters and her own memories of her early life in France.

She died November 14, 1947 at the home of her elder daughter, Countess Iddesleigh (wife of the third Earl[1]) in Eversley Cross, Hampshire. She was interred in France, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Versailles, where she spent her youth.

Bibliography

  • The Heart of Penelope (1904)
  • Barbara Rebell (1905)
  • The Pulse of Life (1906)
  • Studies in Wives (1907)
  • The Uttermost Farthing (1908)
  • According to Meredith (1909)
  • Studies in Wives. Short Stories (1909)
  • When No Man Pursueth (1910)
  • Jane Oglander (1911)
  • Mary Pechell (1912)
  • The Chink in the Armour (1912)
  • The End of Her Honeymoon (1914)
  • The Lodger (1913).
  • Good old Anna (1915)
  • The Red Cross Barge (1916)
  • Lilla: a part of her life (1917)
  • Out of the War (1918)
  • The Lonely House (1919)
  • From Out of the Vast Deep (1920)
  • What Timmy Did (1921)
  • Why They Married (1922)
  • The Philanderer (1923)
  • The Terriford Mystery (1924)
  • Some Men and Women (1925)
  • Afterwards (1925)
  • Bread of Deceit (1925)
  • What Really Happened (1926)
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill (1927)
  • The Story of Ivy (1927)
  • Cressida: no mystery (1928)
  • One of Those Ways (1929)
  • Love's Revenge (1929)
  • Key, a love drama in three acts (1930)
  • Letty Lynton (1931) made into a film by MGM with Joan Crawford in 1932.
  • Vanderlyn's Adventure (1931)
  • Love is a Flame (1932)
  • Jenny Newstead (1932)
  • The Reason Why (1932)
  • Dutchess Laura (1933)
  • Another Man's Wife (1934)
  • The Chianti Flask (1934)
  • Who Rides on a Tiger (1935)
  • The Second Key (1936)
  • And Call it Accident (1936)
  • The House by the Sea (1937)
  • The Marriage Broker (1937)
  • The Fortune of Bridget Malone (1937)
  • Motive (1938)
  • Empress Eugenie; a three-act play (1938)
  • The Injured Lover (1939)
  • Reckless Angel (1939)
  • Lizzie Borden: A Study in Conjecture (1939)
  • The Christine Diamond (1940)
  • Before the Storm (1941)
  • I too, have lived in Arcadia (a record of Love and Childhood) (1941)
  • What of the Night? (1942)
  • Where Love and Friendship Dwelt (1943)
  • The Labours of Hercules (1943)
  • The Merry Wives of Westminster (1946)
  • She Dwelt with Beauty, published posthumously (1949)

References

  1. ^ http://www.thepeerage.com/p7575.htm

External links


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