Elizabeth Bibesco

Born Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy Asquith in London, she was the daughter of British prime minister H. H. Asquith and writer Margot Asquith. In 1919, she married Prince Antoine Bibesco, a Romanian diplomat, and became closely associated with European political and artistic circles. She also worked as an actress and moved between Britain and continental Europe during a period of major social change.

Bibesco began publishing in the 1920s, writing novels, short stories, poetry, and aphorisms shaped by her experience of high society and diplomatic life. Her novels include The Broker, The Fir and the Palm, Balloon, and The Romantic, published in 1940. She spent part of her married life in Madrid while her husband served as Romania’s ambassador there.

She died of pneumonia in Bucharest on April 7, 1945, aged 48, and was buried at Mogoșoaia in Romania. A posthumous collection of her stories, poems, and aphorisms, Haven, appeared in 1951 with an introduction by Elizabeth Bowen.