Born Eleanor Alice Burford, Victoria Holt was Britain’s most prolific historical novelists, writing 183 books over the course of her career. She wrote under many pseudonyms – Jean Plaidy was one of her most popular, and was created when she lived near Plaidy Beach, in Cornwall. Holt, who kept her birth date and most of her personal life a closely guarded secret, decided to be a novelist at an early age, but she did not publish her first book, Beyond the Blue Mountains, until 1947. It was the first of more than 90 historical romances written under the pen name Jean Plaidy. Her U.S. agent later suggested she write a new series of Gothic romances, the first of which, Mistress of Mellyn, appeared in 1960 under the pseudonym Victoria Holt. She wrote two Jean Plaidy romances and one Victoria Holt a year until 1972, when she added The Miracle at St. Bruno’s, the first of a 17-novel family saga published under the pseudonym Philippa Carr. Holt also wrote under her maiden name, Eleanor Burford, and the pseudonyms Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, and Ellalice Tate. She died at sea in 1993, somewhere between Greece and Port Said, Egypt.
