The sister of Hilaire Belloc, Marie was raised and educated in France and married Frederic Lowndes, a staff writer at the Times, in 1896. In 1904, she published the first of many novels, The Heart of Penelope, which was well-received and spelled the beginning of a prolific writing career. In 1913, she published The Lodger, a murder mystery loosely based on the Jack the Ripper case and which was phenomenally successful. It was made into a film on numerous occasions, the first being by Alfred Hitchcock in 1927. During her long career she became close friends with many of the literary elite including Oscar Wilde, George Meredith and Henry James. Her husband died in 1940 and much of her work after that was of an autobiographical nature. She herself died of stomach cancer at her daughter's house. Her many works include The Pulse of Life (1906), The Uttermost Farthing (1908), Jane Oglander (1911), The Chink in the Armor (1912), Good Old Anna (1915), The Lonely House (1919), Why They Married (1922), Afterwards (1925), One of Those Ways (1929), Love is a Flame (1932), Another Man's Wife (1934), The House by the Sea (1937), Lizzie Borden: A Study in Conjecture (1939), Before The Storm (1941), I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia (1942) and She Dwelt With Beauty (1949 Posthumous). |
