As a married woman with a young child and with her husband serving for a second time as a soldier in a world war, Georgina Battiscombe wrote her first biography, Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Story of an Uneventful Life, published in 1943. The book achieved success partly because it dealt with the intensely industrious but wholly peaceful life of a lady living in times far removed in every way from the perils of World War II. On this initial success, Battiscombe built up a reputation for serious, original, and highly readable books, choosing as her subjects the lives and works of important nineteenth-century characters not always widely known.

Born Georgina Harwood on 21 November 1905, Battiscombe's family ties and affections were always to be of great importance. It is significant that her longer, more demanding books are all dedicated to members of her family, two to her husband and the others...