Ann Bridge (Lady Mary Dolling Sanders O'Malley) was internationally successful as a novelist because of the insightful portraits of countries other than their own she offered her readers. Her novels, which have been translated into as many as sixteen languages, often resulted in an increase in tourism for the countries in which they are set. Foreign dignitaries approached her to request that she write of their homelands, for she was known for her faithful representations that resulted from rigorous research into each country's language, culture, and political history. In addition to these travelogues combined with romantic fiction that provided an insider's view of countries such as China, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Albania, Bridge wrote four novels that focus on historical events of which she had firsthand knowledge: Frontier Passage (1942), The Dark Moment (1952), A Place to Stand (1953), and The Tightening String (1962).

Mary Ann Dolling Sanders was born on 11 September 1889 in...