Flora Fraser

While at St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where she read Greats (1977 – 81), Flora Fraser worked as a researcher to a number of writers. She has been a professional writer herself ever since leaving Oxford.

Her early books number: a romantic thriller, Double Portrait, in a series called Nightshades: The Darker Side of Love (1983); Maud: The Diaries of Maud Berkeley (1985); an illustrated History of the English Gentlewomen (1987); and a classical novel, Tamgar (1990).

Flora is the author of four historical biographies. They are Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton (1986), The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline (1996), Princesses: The Daughters of George III (2004), and Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire (2009).

George & Martha Washington: A Revolutionary Marriage was published by Bloomsbury in November 2016. The US edition, titled The Washingtons: George and Martha, “Join'd by Friendship, Crown'd by love” was published by Knopf and won the prestigious George Washington prize 2016. Flora's book, Pretty Young Rebel: The Life of Flora Macdonald was published in 2022 by Bloomsbury in the UK and Knopf in the US.

Flora was a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery (1999 – 2008). She also served for three years as a member of the Friends of the National Libraries Executive Committee (1999 – 2002), and was a Costa Literary Awards judge in 2011. Since 2011 she has been a member of Wadham Development Council, Oxford.

In 2003 she co-founded, with Peter Soros, the Elizabeth Longford Prize and Grants for Historical Biography in affectionate memory of her grandmother, the noted biographer. Since 2005 Flora has been a member of The Literary Society, founded 1807. She is a Patron of freeopenairtheatre.org and is a member of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History judging committee for the second year running. Flora lives in London but enjoys adventuring in America, the Mediterranean and China.