Molly Lefebure’s Followers (4)

Molly Lefebure

Born

in London, The United Kingdom

October 06, 1919

Died

February 27, 2013

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Molly Lefebure was born in Hackney on 6 October 1919 into a family descended from prominent arms manufacturers in 18th-century Paris. Her father, Charles Lefebure (OBE 1941 Birthday Honours), was a senior civil servant who worked with Sir William Beveridge on the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS), applying some of the revolutionary ideas of Robespierre, the Parisian Lefebures having professed Jacobin sympathies. Her mother was Elizabeth Cox.

Some of Molly's forebears had been men of letters; and one, Pierre Lefebure, having helped to set up the Institut Francais, became a professor of languages at the newly formed London University. Her uncle was Major Victor Lefebure (OBE, Chavalier of the Legion of Honour and Officer of th Molly Lefebure was born in Hackney on 6 October 1919 into a family descended from prominent arms manufacturers in 18th-century Paris. Her father, Charles Lefebure (OBE 1941 Birthday Honours), was a senior civil servant who worked with Sir William Beveridge on the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS), applying some of the revolutionary ideas of Robespierre, the Parisian Lefebures having professed Jacobin sympathies. Her mother was Elizabeth Cox.

Some of Molly's forebears had been men of letters; and one, Pierre Lefebure, having helped to set up the Institut Francais, became a professor of languages at the newly formed London University. Her uncle was Major Victor Lefebure (OBE, Chavalier of the Legion of Honour and Officer of the Crown of Italy) who, on 5–6 October 1916, carried out one of the most successful cylinder gas attacks of the war on the French front at Nieuport. He was a British Chemical Liaisons Officer officer with the French until the war closed. He wrote 'The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical strategy in Peace and War.'

Molly Lefebure was educated at the North London Collegiate School. She went on to study at King's College London at the University of London where she met her husband, John Gerrish.

During the Second World War, Lefebure worked as a newspaper reporter for a London newspaper. It was also during the war that she met Dr Keith Simpson (the pathologist) and worked for him as his secretary where she gained information for her first book 'Evidence for the Crown,' the inspiration for the two part ITV drama Murder on the Homefront, which was also a title she coined for this memoir when she later republished it. Molly was the first woman ever to work in a mortuary. She was known as 'Molly of the morgue' and 'Miss Molly' by Scotland Yard.

Lefebure went on to live with her husband and her two children at Kingston-upon-Thames by the river. She also owned a house, Low High Snab, in Newlands Valley in Cumbria, where she wrote many of her books.

Molly's maternal grandmother arranged for her to spend summers on a remote farm on Exmoor, where Molly learned to hunt. Blooded aged eight with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, she subsequently wrote on hunting for both The Field and Country Life and was a member of the Blencathra Hunt in the Lake District for more than 50 years.

Among Lefebure's 20 or so other books was a 1974 biography of Coleridge, subtitled 'The Bondage of Opium,' and a study of his wife, 'The Bondage of Love' (1986), which won Molly Lefebure the Lakeland Book of the Year award. Her study of the Coleridge children, 'The Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner,' is with her publisher, as is her last book, about the Lake District, 'The Vision and the Echo.' She also wrote several novels, as well as (under the name Mary Blandy, an 18th-century forebear who was convicted of poisoning her father) two studies of drug addiction.

Lefebure's children's books include illustrations by the famous Lakeland author Hill Walker and illustrator Alfred Wainwright.

Lefebure was a Coleridge scholar. After studying drug addiction at Guy's Hospital in London for six years, she wrote a biography of Coleridge that researched the effect on his life of his addiction to opiates.

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010.
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Molly Lefebure’s books

Average rating: 3.66 · 749 ratings · 144 reviews · 21 distinct works • Similar authors

	Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers, and Mysteries During the London Blitz 3.63 avg rating — 643 ratings — published 1955 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blitz! 3.93 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 1988 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thunder in the Sky 3.73 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1991 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hunting of Wilberforce Pike 4.18 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thomas Hardy's World: An Illuminating Biography 3.25 avg rating — 8 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Bondage of Opium (Coleridge, #1) 3.70 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1974 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thomas Hardy's World: The Life Work & Times of the Great Novelist and Poet 3.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1997 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Scratch & Co.: The Great Cat Expedition 4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Illustrated Lake Poets it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bondage of Love: A Life of Mrs. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Coleridge, #2) 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1984 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Molly Lefebure…

Series by Molly Lefebure

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (3 books)
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Molly Lefebure

3.86 avg rating — 14 ratings

Quotes by Molly Lefebure

“Murder is something you read about, listen to on a wireless, see at the pictures, discover in print every Sunday morning when you open your newspaper. But you never come across in your own everyday life.
It happens to other people, maybe in other districts, but it doesn't happen in your family, or among your neighbours, or down your street.”
― Molly Lefebure

tags: fiction-vs-reality

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Molly Lefebure’s Followers (4)

Molly Lefebure

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Molly Lefebure’s books