The Edwardian Lady

In 1906 Edith Holden wrote her Nature Notes which, when published in 1977 as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, captured the imagination of the reading public all over the world. In the Edwardian Lady, Ina Taylor has brought together a unique collection of photographs, paintings and momentoes of the Holden family which tell the story of Edith's life, and the background against which she developed her talents. Brought up in the new and exciting industrial centre of Birmingham in the last years of the Victorian age, the remarkable Holden family participated to the full in the expanding artistic and cultural life of the city where William Morris and Walter Crane were her conetmporaries. The story follows Edith to Scotland, where she studied then to Dartmoor and finally to London, where she carried on her painting and illustrating in Chelsea after her marriage to the sculptor Ernest Smith, and where she lived until her tragic death by drowning in 1920.