In the Vine Country Tapa blanda -

Edith Anna Oenone Somerville was born in 1858 on the island of Corfu into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, but grew up in Castletownshend, County Cork. A talented artist and a passionate horsewoman, she later studied art in Dublin, Paris and London. In 1886 she met her second cousin Violet Martin and a year later they formed a close friendship and literary partnership. Their first novel, An Irish Cousin, was published in 1889, with Martin adopting the pseudonym "Martin Ross". The pair went on to write 14 books together before Martin's untimely death in 1915. After the First World War, Somerville continued to write under their joint pen names in the belief that she was able to communicate with her late cousin through spirit mediums. She died in her home town of Castletownshend in 1949 at the age of 91. Victoria Moore is the wine editor for the Sunday Telegraph.