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21 February 1888 – 28 March 1965

Clemence Dane's real name was Winifred Ashton. She was born in London in 1888. At the age of 16 she went to Geneva to teach French. Later she studied art at the Slade School and in Dresden, taught again in Ireland, and then went on the stage, where for five years she acted under the name "Diana Curtis." She borrowed her nom de plume from the church of St. Clement Danes. Her first book, published in 1917, was the famous *Regiment of Women*. She followed it with *Legend*, which became a very successful play. Her later novels include *Wandering Star*, *He Brings Great News* and *The Flower Girls*. She collaborated with <a href=https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2313252A/Helen_de_Guerry_S…

1 December 1897 – 14 October 1940

Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940), writer, was born on 1 December 1897 in Sydney, fourth and youngest child of native-born parents Edward Percy Simpson, solicitor, and his wife Anna Maria Alexandra Guerry, daughter of the French Marquis de Guerry de Lauret. Helen grew up at her father's home, St Mervyn's, Point Piper. Her parents separated and her Catholic mother moved to London. Her father, an Anglican, sent her as a boarder to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Rose Bay, and to Abbotsleigh. Arriving in England in April 1914, Helen joined her mother. She went to Oxford in September 1915, joining the Society of Oxford Home Students (later St Anne's College), and read French at the univers…