Nesta Helen Webster

Born in 1876 as Nesta Helen Bevan, she was an English author who published fiction, memoir, and works of political history. She studied at Westfield College in London and later traveled abroad before marrying Arthur Templer Webster in 1904.

She is chiefly remembered for books on the French Revolution, the Illuminati, and what she portrayed as hidden forces behind modern political upheaval. Those writings found a substantial audience, but they are also the reason she remains controversial: modern reference works describe her as a major popularizer of conspiratorial and antisemitic ideas.

Webster died in 1960. Today she is read less as a conventional historian than as a figure in the history of political extremism, propaganda, and conspiracy thinking.