Edith Blackwell Holden (1871-1920) was a British artist and art teacher. She became famous following the posthumous publication of her Nature Notes for 1906, in facsimile form, as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady in 1977. These, and her life story, were later the subject of a television dramatisation.

Introduction

During the 1906-1909 school years, she taught at the Solihull School for Girls.

Her paintings were exhibited by the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (1890-1907), and by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1907 and 1917.

In 1911, married Ernest Smith, a sculptor.

Collecting flowers from a riverbank at Kew Gardens, she drowned in the Thames in 1920.

Bibliography

• The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady (1977)
• The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady (1989)

Works she illustrated

• The Animal's Friend (four volumes, 1907-1910, the magazine of the National Council for Animals' Welfare)
• Daily Bread (1910) by Margaret Gatty
• Woodland Whisperings (1911) by Margaret Rankin
• a series of undated children's books published by Henry Frowde/Hodder & Stoughton
  • Animals Around Us
  • Birds
  • Beasts and Fishes
  • The Three Goats Gruff
  • Mrs Strang's Annual for Children.
• The Hedgehog Feast (text by her great-niece Rowena Stot; 1978)

A number of her illustrations have since been used on tie-in products, from books such as Country Diary Recipes to cookware, stationery and ornaments.

Biography

The Edwardian Lady: The Story of Edith Holden, Ina Taylor (1980)

External links

• Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography entry
• Internet Movie Database entry for the TV series