Between 1969 and 1992 Victoria Glendinning wrote six biographies; five relate the story of a woman's life, and five provide examples of copious and outstanding literary achievement. Her books are notable for painstaking attention to detail, fine critical judgment, and candid but sympathetic perception of character. The quality of her writing is to be found in its lucidity and because fresh creative insights are expressed in direct terms without recourse to pretentious phraseology.

Victoria Seebohm was born on 23 April 1937, the second child of Frederic Seebohm, a banker, and Evangeline Seebohm, whose father was Sir Gerald Hurst, a scholar and a barrister who was for many years a Conservative member of Parliament and subsequently a judge. The Seebohms were Quakers of German origin who settled in the north of England, but Victoria's great-grandfather Frederic came south and married the daughter of a prosperous banker, thus becoming a partner in a business...