>Marie Adelaide Lowndes, née Belloc (August 5, 1868 – November
14, 1947), was a prolific English novelist. Active from 1904 until
her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting
incident with psychological interest. Her most famous novel, The
Lodger (1913), based on the Jack the Ripper murders, has been
adapted for the screen five different times; the first movie
version was Alfred Hitchcock's silent film The Lodger: A Story of
the London Fog (1927). Another novel of hers, Letty Lynton (1931),
was the basis for the 1932 motion picture of the same name starring
Joan Crawford. Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La
Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Mrs Belloc Lowndes was the only daughter
of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie
Parkes. Her brother was Hilaire Belloc. Her paternal grandfather
was the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc and her maternal
great-grandfather was Joseph Priestley. In 1896 she married
Frederic Sawrey Lowndes. Her first novel, The Heart of Penelope,
was published in 1904.