Norma Lorimer

Born in 1864 in Auchterarder, Perthshire, she was the youngest daughter in a large family and was raised on the Isle of Man. That setting stayed important to her imagination, and later readers and critics especially connected her with fiction about the south of the island.

In the 1890s she worked as secretary to writer Douglas Sladen, and she also collaborated with him on travel writing about Sicily. She went on to contribute to Girl's Own Paper and published numerous travel books along with more than two dozen novels. Her best-known titles include A Wife out of Egypt, which became a bestseller, and On Etna.

Her stories often mixed romance, emotion, and a strong sense of place, drawing on destinations around the Mediterranean as well as Manx life. She died in Perth, Scotland, on February 14, 1948. Several of her novels were adapted for silent films, including Woman, Woman! and Shadow of Egypt.