Welcome to my blog REDOUBTABLE EDWARDIANS featuring articles about the colorful eccentrics who populated the era of my books. I hope you will find them as fascinating as I do!
I have taken the tremendous liberty in A DEATH BY ANY OTHER NAME, which releases on March 14, 2017, of including among my quirky characters the redoubtable garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. Miss Jekyll designed some of the most beautiful gardens in England, Europe and America. She bred a number of herbaceous specimens that we grow… Read the full article >>
April 29, 1879 – March 8, 1961 There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between. —Sir Thomas Beecham Beecham’s grandfather, also Thomas Beecham, was the rich industrialist who owned Beecham’s Powders, a laxative and cure-all for headache and… Read the full article >>
Constance Gladys, Marchioness of Ripon was six feet tall and considered to be a stunner; she was so beautiful that even the most glamorous in her company looked like they needed ‘a touch of the sponge and the duster,’ according to the writer E.F. Benson. Lady Ripon was a close friend of Oscar Wilde, who… Read the full article >>
Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon is possibly more infamously known for the scandal surrounding her escape from the Titanic in an almost empty lifeboat with her secretary and her husband Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon.