Artemis Cooper, Lady Beevor FRSL (born Alice Clare Antonia Opportune Cooper; 22 April 1953) is a British writer, primarily of

biographies A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

. She is married to historian Sir

Antony Beevor Sir Antony James Beevor, (born 14 December 1946) is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works on the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War. Early life Born in Kensington, Beevor was educated at tw ...

Family life

She is the only daughter of The 2nd Viscount Norwich (better known as John Julius Norwich) and his first wife, Anne (née Clifford), and a paternal granddaughter of Duff and Diana Cooper. She has a brother, the Hon. Jason Charles Duff Bede Cooper, and a half-sister,

Allegra Huston Allegra Huston (born 26 August 1964) is a British-American author, editor and writer based in Taos, New Mexico. She is the author of ''Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found'', the novel ''A Stolen Summer'' (''Say My Name'' in hardback ...

, the only child of Lord Norwich and

Enrica Soma Enrica Georgia Soma (May 9, 1929 – January 29, 1969) was an American socialite, model, and prima ballerina. She was also the wife of director John Huston and mother of their three children. Life and career Soma was born in Manhattan, New York, ...

(then-estranged wife of American film director John Huston). Cooper attended the French Lycee, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Woldingham and

Camden School for Girls The Camden School for Girls (CSG) is a comprehensive secondary school for girls, with a co-educational sixth form, in the London Borough of Camden in north London. It has about one thousand students of ages eleven to eighteen, and specialist- ...

. She then went to St Hugh's College, Oxford and obtained a degree in English language and literature. In July 2015, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of York. She spent time in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

with

Voluntary Service Overseas Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is a not-for-profit international development organization charity with a vision for "a fair world for everyone" and a mission to "create lasting change through volunteering". VSO delivers development impact throug ...

teaching English at the

University of Alexandria Alexandria University ( ar, جامعة الإسكندرية) is a public university in Alexandria, Egypt. It was established in 1938 as a satellite of Fouad University (the name of which was later changed to Cairo University), becoming an indepen ...

. She has also lived in America, mostly in

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

. In 1986, Artemis Cooper married fellow writer and historian

. The couple have two children.

Writing career

Cooper's first book was a collection of the letters of her grandmother, Lady Diana Cooper. When her biography of

Patrick Leigh Fermor Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greates ...

appeared in 2012, it was serialised on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

. It was followed in September 2013 by '' The Broken Road'', effectively the third volume of Leigh Fermor's memoir of his walking trip from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul in the 1930s. Cooper was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2017.

Bibliography

Books

* **U.S. edition: * ''The Diana Cooper Scrapbook'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1987) * ''Cairo in the War, 1939-1945'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1989; ) * ''Watching in the Dark: A Child's Fight for Life'' (John Murray, 1992; a memoir of her daughter's childhood illness) * ''Writing at the Kitchen Table: The Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David'' (Penguin Books Ltd, 2004; paperback ed.) * ''Paris After the Liberation, 1944-1949'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1994; Penguin Books, 2007; written with her husband, Antony Beevor) **''Paris despues de la liberación 1944-1949'' (2004, Spanish translation) * ''Words of Mercury'' (John Murray, 2003; Patrick Leigh Fermor & Artemis Cooper; ) * ''

: An Adventure'' (John Murray, 2012; ) * ''

Elizabeth Jane Howard Elizabeth Jane Howard, Lady Amis (26 March 1923 – 2 January 2014), was an English novelist, author of 12 novels including the best-selling series ''The'' ''Cazalet Chronicles''. Early life Howard's parents were timber-merchant Major David L ...

: A Dangerous Innocence'' (John Murray, 2016, )

Editor

* ''Tango'' (Thames & Hudson, 1995; ed. Simon Collier, Artemis Cooper, Maria Susana Azzi, and Richard Martin) * ''Mr Wu and Mrs Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper'' (ed. Artemis Cooper) * Patrick Leigh Fermor. ''The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos'' (ed. Artemis Cooper and

Colin Thubron Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, FRAS (born 14 June 1939) is a British travel writer and novelist. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked him among the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to ''The New York Review of Books'',

) (John Murray, 2013; )

References

External links

English editors British women editors British women historians English women writers Daughters of viscounts Wives of knights 1953 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century English historians 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English historians 21st-century English writers 21st-century English women writers British people of New Zealand descent Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature {{UK-historian-stub