Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
Marie Adelaide Lowndes née Belloc (August 5, 1868 – November 14, 1947). Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, was an English novelist, born in Marylebone, London, the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and Bessie Parkes, and sister of 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.
Mrs. Lowndes established her reputation as a teller of stories combining exciting incident with psychological interest. 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 of her own early life in France.
Her most famous novel is The Lodger, published in 1913. Based on the Jack the Ripper murders, it is about a London family who suspects that their upstairs lodger is a mysterious killer known as "The Avenger." The novel was the basis for five movie adaptions. The first was the silent film version The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 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.
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 Paris & 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)