Lady Antonia Fraser

The Lady Antonia Fraser (born August 27, 1932) is a British author of history and novels, best known for writing biographies. She is the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Longford, both eminent writers. As the daughter of an Earl, she is entitled to the style "Lady."

In 1956 Lady Antonia married Hugh Fraser, MP with whom she had six children. A Roman Catholic, she caused a public scandal in 1977 by leaving her husband to live with the playwright, Harold Pinter, whom she eventually married, in 1980. Pinter's then-wife, the actress Vivien Merchant, spoke publicly of her distress at his abandonment of her and made cutting remarks about Fraser in the press, including the famous comment that "she has very big feet".

Lady Antonia was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Her first major work was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969). She followed it up with various other biographies, including, Cromwell, our Chief of Men (1973), and she won the Wolfson History Award in 1984 for The Weaker Vessel, a study of women's lives in 17th century England. She also writes detective novels.

More recently, Lady Antonia published "Warrior Queens," the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra. In 1992 she published "The Six Wives of Henry VIII." The book was criticised for jumping to conclusions on the relationship between Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Fraser later published "The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605." Her most recent work is an acclaimed and in-depth biography of France's last legitimate queen, Marie Antoinette. "Marie-Antoinette: The Journey" is apparently being adapted for film by Sofia Coppola with the title role being played by Kirsten Dunst.