Miranda Seymour was two years old when her parents moved into
Thrumpton Hall,[3] the family ancestral home. She detailed her unconventional upbringing in her 2008 memoir In My Father's House: Elegy for an Obsessive Love (
Simon & Schuster, UK[4]),[5] which appeared in the US as Thrumpton Hall (
HarperCollins)[6] and won the 2008
Pen Ackerley Prize for Memoir of the Year.[7]
Seymour began her literary career in 1975 with an historical novel, The Stones of Maggiare.[9] This was followed by six others concerned with Italy and Greece, including Daughter of Darkness, about Lucrezia Borgia,[10] and Medea (1982).[11]
In 1982, Seymour turned to biography, beginning with a group portrait of
Henry James in his later years, entitled A Ring of Conspirators.[12] This was followed by biographies of
Lady Ottoline Morrell,[13]Mary Shelley[14] and
Robert Graves,[15] about whom she also wrote a novel, The Telling[16] and a radio play, Sea Music.
In 2001, she came across material on
Hellé Nice, a forgotten French Grand Prix racing driver of the 1930s. After extensive research, Seymour published an acclaimed[17] book, The Bugatti Queen,[18] in 2004 about Nice's ultimately tragic life. This was followed by another life of an unconventional woman, that of 1930s film star,
Virginia Cherrill. This was also based on a substantial archive in private ownership, and published as Chaplin's Girl: The Lives and Loves of Virginia Cherrill in 2009.[19]
In 2002, Seymour published a book about herbs: A Brief History of Thyme.[20]Noble Endeavours: Stories from England; Stories from Germany appeared in September 2013 from Simon & Schuster and was described as being a work of 'unphased optimism'.[21]
Seymour returned to biography with In Byron's Wake[22] (2018) which covered the lives of
Lord Byron's wife and daughter,
Annabella Milbanke and
Ada Lovelace.[23][24]I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys was published by Harper Collins in 2022.[25][26]
Formerly a Visiting Professor of English Studies at the University of Nottingham Trent,[27] Seymour is currently the
Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Kings College London.[28]
Bibliography
Fiction
The Stones of Maggiare: a story of the Sforzas (1975)
Count Manfred: a Gothic tale (1976)
Daughter of Darkness: Lucrezia Borgia (1977)
The Goddess: Helen of Troy (1979)
Madonna of the Island: stories from a village in Corfu (1980)
Medea (1981)
Carrying On (1984)
The Reluctant Devil (1990)
The Summer of '39 (1998), published in the UK (1997) as The Telling
Juvenile fiction
Mumtaz the Magical Cat (1984)
Caspar and the Secret Kingdom (1986)
The Vampire of Verdonia (1986)
Pierre and the Pamplemousse (1989)
Non-fiction
A Ring of Conspirators:
Henry James and his literary circle, 1895–1915 (1988)