Born in Glasgow and educated at Oxford, where she was reputedly the first woman to edit the university magazine, Elizabeth Mavor (1927–2013) was the author of five novels and numerous works of nonfiction. Drawn to the lives of women who flouted convention, her most celebrated works include two historical biographies: The Virgin Mistress: A Study in Survival (1964), about Elizabeth Pierrepont, Duchess of Kingston, an English courtesan famous for her adventurous lifestyle; and The Ladies of Langollen (1971), the story of cross-dressing aristocratic companions Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. Mavor was married to the cartoonist and illustrator Haro Hodson, with whom she had two sons.