The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

Edith Blackwell Holden (26 September 1871 – 15 March 1920) was a British artist and art teacher. She was born in Moseley, Birmingham. She became famous following the posthumous publication of her Nature Notes for 1906, in facsimile form, as the book The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady in 1977, which was an enormous publishing success, frequently given as a gift. These, and her life story, were later the subject of a television dramatisation.

During the 1906–1909 years, she taught at a school in Solihull.

Her paintings were exhibited by the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (1890–1907), and by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1907 and 1917.

In 1911, she married Alfred Ernest Smith, born 1879, a sculptor.

Collecting flowers from a riverbank at Kew Gardens, she drowned in the Thames in 1920.

Edith Blackwell Holden (1871–1920) was a British artist and part-time art teacher, known in her time as an illustrator of children's books. Much influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, she specialized in painting animals and plants. Holden was made famous by the posthumous publication, in 1977, of her Nature Notes for 1906 under the title The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. She was living in Gowan Bank, Kineton Green Road, Olton, Solihull in 1905-6 when she recorded the notes. The collection of seasonal observations, poetry, and pictures of birds, plants, and insects—which was never even considered for publication when it was composed—had the nostalgic charm of a vanished world seven decades later. It became a world-wide best seller.

Edith's mother was Emma Wearing, a Spiritualist & Unitarian, and former governess who wrote two religious books, Ursula's Childhood and Beatrice of St. Mawse, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Her father, also a Unitarian & Spiritualist, was Arthur Holden - owner of Arthur Holden & Son's Paint Factory in Bradford Street, Birmingham, noted Town Councillor and charity worker. Edith's middle name honoured the pioneer woman physician, Elizabeth Blackwell, also a Unitarian and the Holdens' cousin. The Holden family attended the Birmingham Labour Church.

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