Marie Belloc Lowndes

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Standard Name: Lowndes, Marie Belloc
Birth Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Belloc
Nickname: Mary
Married Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Lowndes
Indexed Name: Mrs Belloc Lowndes
Pseudonym: Philip Curtin
Pseudonym: Elizabeth Rayner
During a career that spanned nearly fifty years from 1889, MBL published journalism, biography, a guidebook, history for children, novels (mostly romances or thrillers), a book about actual crimes, and four late volumes of autobiography. Her books of crime and detection were her most successful. Her list of titles numbers more than seventy.
Photograph of the cover of "The Chink in the Armour" by Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1912. It is orange with black lettering ("Mrs. Belloc Lowndes"), and a large background circle of little red balls or beads.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Reception Harriette Wilson
Contemporary admirers of HW on literary grounds included Walter Scott , who praised her dialogue and intelligence, and thought her out and out
Thirkell, Angela. The Fortunes of Harriette. Hamish Hamilton.
218
a better writer than Teresia Constantia Phillips or others in the...
Friends, Associates Dorothy Whipple
Living in the north, DW remained outside London literary circles. She found the company of councillors and their wives rather dispiriting and seem[ed] to have so much of it (because of her husband's job).
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
40
Literary responses Rebecca West
Marie Belloc Lowndes considered this one of the best critical books in the language.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
217
Textual Production Rebecca West
RW 's papers are located at the McFarlin Library in the University of Tulsa and in the Beinecke Library at Yale .
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
384
In 1945 Marie Belloc Lowndes indignantly contradicted Hugh Walpole 's portrayal of...
Literary responses Patricia Wentworth
The Gazette awarded PW a prize of 250 guineas for her work.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
77
Marie Belloc Lowndes , reviewing for the Times Literary Supplement, remarked that the Dickens of A Tale of Two Cities had...
Literary responses Mary Augusta Ward
Critically, MAW has not fared well since her death, despite her immense popularity in her lifetime and the seriousness with which her contemporaries read her. She was quickly cast as more Victorian than Edwardian...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth von Arnim
This marriage produced in all five children: the first three, all girls, were born within the first three years. According to Marie Belloc Lowndes , EA retained her love and tenderness towards only one of...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth von Arnim
On her trips back to England EA made some important new friends, including Maude Stanley , a feminist interested in reforming London streetwalkers.
Usborne, Karen. "Elizabeth": The Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Bodley Head.
85
Stanley advised von Arnim extensively on her children's education and helped...
Publishing Elizabeth von Arnim
Marie Belloc Lowndes wrote that EAobtained very large sums for the serialisation of her books in the USA, and took the credit for having mentioned her name to the lady who then chose...
Friends, Associates Evelyn Underhill
EU and her husband led active social lives, often entertaining friends and colleagues at their home. Blanche Alethea Crackanthorpe introduced her to Marie Belloc Lowndes , who became a friend of Underhill and called her...
Literary responses Evelyn Underhill
Marie Belloc Lowndes thought this novel and The Grey World had a quality of poetical beauty no writer has since attained. She deplored a later slighting reference to these novels, and liked them better than...
Friends, Associates Katharine Tynan
Living in a suburb of London, KT frequented the heart of English literary culture. She had already joined London's Irish Literary Society , and was later appointed its Honorary Vice-President.
Tynan, Katharine. The Years of the Shadow. Constable.
3-4
Among other literary figures...
Friends, Associates Susan Tweedsmuir
ST 's parents made connections through friendship as remarkable as those made for them by family descent. Her mother was a friend of many writers and intellectuals of both sexes, including Marie Belloc Lowndes ,...
Leisure and Society Violet Trefusis
Marie Belloc Lowndes recorded in 1945 that VT looked and dressed as if she was twenty-eight, was a fascinating talker who liked to hold the floor, and had wonderful joie de vivre.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
264
Friends, Associates Violet Trefusis
The following year Lowndes stayed with Trefusis at West Coker Manor.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
273
At this time VT nurtured her (often edgy) relationship with writer Nancy Mitford , who moved from England to Paris in April...

Timeline

By 13 November 1886: Maxwell Gray (whose real name was Mary Gleed...

Women writers item

By 13 November 1886

Maxwell Gray (whose real name was Mary Gleed Tuttiet ) published her well-known and highly successful novelThe Silence of Dean Maitland.

By autumn 1896: French erotic writer Pierre Louÿs, already...

Writing climate item

By autumn 1896

French erotic writer Pierre Louÿs , already notorious for the lesbian Songs of Bilitis, 1895, printed at his own expense his best-known work, Aphrodite, about a courtesan in ancient Alexandria.

2 July 1914: The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited...

Building item

2 July 1914

The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis , formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.

January 1921: The Englishwoman, a monthly forum for serious...

Building item

January 1921

The Englishwoman, a monthly forum for serious feminist discussion, ceased publication in London.

21 July 1945: Just before the general election, Marie Belloc...

National or international item

21 July 1945

Just before the general election, Marie Belloc Lowndes reported that empty houses in London were being requisitioned because of the housing shortage caused by bombing.

Texts

Broughton, Rhoda, and Marie Belloc Lowndes. A Fool in Her Folly. Odhams, 1920.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “A Marriage Under the Terror”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 435, p. 174.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. A Passing World. Macmillan, 1948.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Barbara Rebell. W. Heinemann, 1905.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus, 1971.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc, and Marie L. Shedlock. Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, with Letters, and Leaves from their Journals. W. Heinemann, 1894.
Elizabeth Northcote, Countess of Iddesleigh, and Marie Belloc Lowndes. “Foreword”. The Young Hilaire Belloc, P. J. Kenedy, 1956.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Good Old Anna. Hutchinson, 1915.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “Interplay”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 350, p. 309.
Elizabeth Northcote, Countess of Iddesleigh, et al. “List of Books by Mrs Belloc Lowndes, Foreword”. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947, edited by Susan Lowndes Marques and Susan Lowndes Marques, Chatto and Windus, 1971, pp. prelims, 1 - 3.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Lizzie Borden. Hutchinson, 1940.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “Notes on New Foreign Books”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 414, p. 504.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. She Dwelt with Beauty. Macmillan, 1949.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “Some French Gift Books”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 361, p. 467.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Studies in Love and in Terror. Methuen, 1913.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Studies in Wives. W. Heinemann, 1910.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Chink in the Armour. Methuen, 1912.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The End of her Honeymoon. Methuen, 1914.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Heart of Penelope. W. Heinemann, 1904.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Lodger. Methuen, 1913.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan, 1946.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Philosophy of the Marquise. G. Richards, 1899.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Pulse of Life. W. Heinemann, 1908.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Red Cross Barge. Smith, Elder, 1916.