Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes was born in George Street, Marylebone, London on the 5th August 1868 the only daughter of Anglo-French parents. She spent much of her early life in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France. In 1896 she married the journalist Frederick Sawrey A Lowndes and went on to have a son and two daughters. From shortly after this time until her death she wrote a novel, play, short story collection or non-fiction work every year. Some of her works were also filmed, the most famous being ‘The Lodger’ which was filmed on several occasions including once by Alfred Hitchcock. Marie Belloc Lowndes died on the 14th November 1947 in Eversley Cross, Hampshire. She was 79.