# Molly Lefebure > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Molly_Lefebure > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Molly_Lefebure.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Lefebure > Source revision: 1318268999 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|British writer}} {{Use British English|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} '''Molly Lefebure''' [FRSL](/source/FRSL) (6 October 1919 – 27 February 2013){{cite web|url=http://www.thecrimevault.com/exclusives/in-memory-of-molly-lefebure-2/|title=In memory of Molly Lefebure|author=Oliver Gerrish|date=13 March 2013|accessdate=18 April 2013}}{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10001457/Molly-Lefebure.html|publisher=[Daily Telegraph](/source/Daily_Telegraph)|title=Obituary: Molly Lefebure|date=18 April 2013|accessdate=18 April 2013}} was a British writer with an interest in the English [Lake District](/source/Lake_District) and the [Lake Poets](/source/Lake_Poets). ==Early life== Molly Lefebure was born in the [London Borough of Hackney](/source/London_Borough_of_Hackney) on 6 October 1919, the daughter of Charles Hector Lefebure [OBE](/source/Order_of_the_British_Empire) ([1941 Birthday Honours](/source/1941_Birthday_Honours)) and Elizabeth Cox. Charles Lefebure's family was descended from prominent arms manufacturers in 18th-century [Paris](/source/Paris). He was a senior civil servant who worked with [Sir William Beveridge](/source/William_Beveridge) on the establishment of the [National Health Service](/source/National_Health_Service), applying some of the revolutionary ideas of [Robespierre](/source/Maximilien_Robespierre), the Parisian Lefebures having professed [Jacobin](/source/Jacobin) sympathies. Some of Lefebure's forebears had been men of letters. One of them, Pierre Lefebure, helped to set up the [Institut Français](/source/Institut_Fran%C3%A7ais), and became a professor of languages at the newly formed [University of London](/source/University_of_London). Her uncle was Major Victor Lefebure (OBE, Chevalier of the [Legion of Honour](/source/Legion_of_Honour) and [Officer of the Crown of Italy](/source/Order_of_the_Crown_of_Italy)) who, on 5–6 October 1916, carried out one of the most successful cylinder gas attacks of [World War I](/source/World_War_I), on the French front at Nieuport. He was a British chemical liaison officer with the French until the war closed, and wrote ''The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical strategy in Peace and War''.{{cite journal | url=https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/1948/JR/jr9480000394 | doi=10.1039/JR9480000394 | title=Obituary notices: Victor Lefebure, 1891–1947; Alfred Walter Stewart, 1880–1947 | date=1948 | last1=Pratt | first1=J. Davidson | last2=Smiles | first2=S. | journal=J. Chem. Soc. | pages=394–398 | url-access=subscription }} During childhood summers on a remote farm on [Exmoor](/source/Exmoor), arranged by her maternal grandmother, Lefebure learned to [hunt](/source/fox_hunting). Molly Lefebure was educated at the [North London Collegiate School](/source/North_London_Collegiate_School), and went on to study at [King's College London](/source/King's_College_London) where she met her future husband, John Gerrish. == Career == During [World War II](/source/World_War_II) she worked as a reporter for a London newspaper and met the pathologist Dr [Keith Simpson](/source/Keith_Simpson_(professor)). Despite initial hesitation, she became his secretary for almost five years, during which time she gained the information for her first book ''Evidence for the Crown''. It became the inspiration for the 2003 The Radio 4 Saturday Play: Murder on The Home Front {{cite web | url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5f47fbd648ac4219895373aa014b20cb | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231211202521/https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5f47fbd648ac4219895373aa014b20cb | url-status=dead | archive-date=11 December 2023 | title=BBC Programme Index | date=22 November 2003 }} and the 2013 two-part [ITV](/source/ITV_(TV_network)) drama ''[Murder on the Home Front](/source/Murder_on_the_Home_Front)'', a title used for the book when it was republished in 1990. Lefebure was the first woman ever to work at [Southwark](/source/Southwark) mortuary, and she became known as 'Molly of the morgue' by Scotland Yard detectives. Lefebure wrote on hunting for both ''[The Field](/source/The_Field_(magazine))'' and ''[Country Life](/source/Country_Life_(magazine))'', and was a member of the Blencathra Hunt in the [Lake District](/source/Lake_District) for more than 50 years. Lefebure was a [Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge) scholar, and among her 20 or so other books was a 1974 biography of the poet, subtitled ''The Bondage of Opium'', which followed a six-year study of [drug addiction](/source/drug_addiction) at [Guy's Hospital](/source/Guy's_Hospital) in London. She also wrote a study of Coleridge's wife, ''The Bondage of Love'' (1986), which won Lefebure the Lakeland Book of the Year award. This was followed by a study of the Coleridge children, ''The Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner''. She also wrote several novels, and two studies of drug addiction under the name [Mary Blandy](/source/Mary_Blandy), an 18th-century forebear who was convicted of poisoning her father. Lefebure's children's books include illustrations by her friend, the famous Lakeland author, hill walker and illustrator [Alfred Wainwright](/source/Alfred_Wainwright). She appeared in a 2007 BBC documentary about Wainwright. She was elected a Fellow of the [Royal Society of Literature](/source/Royal_Society_of_Literature) in 2010.{{cite web|url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows|title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows|publisher=Royal Society of Literature|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305070326/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows|archivedate=5 March 2010|url-status=dead|accessdate=9 August 2010|df=dmy-all}} == Personal life == Lefebure and John Gerrish married at [Marylebone](/source/Marylebone) in 1945, after he returned from active service in India. They lived by the river at [Kingston-upon-Thames](/source/Kingston-upon-Thames) and had two children.{{cite book|last1=Lefebure|first1=Molly|title=Cumberland Heritage|date=1970|publisher=Victor Gollancz|isbn=0575003766}} In 1957 they bought a house, "Low High Snab", in [Newlands Valley](/source/Newlands_Valley), [Cumbria](/source/Cumbria), where Lefebure wrote many of her books. ==Bibliography== * ''Evidence for the Crown: Experiences of a Pathologist's Secretary'', London: W. Heinemann, 1955; Philadelphia and New York: J-B. Lippincott Company, 1954, 1955, also published as ''Murder on the [Home Front](/source/Home_Front): The Unique Wartime Memoirs of a Pathologist's Secretary'', London etc.: Grafton Books, 1990, {{ISBN|0-586-20854-2}} * ''Murder with a Difference: The Cases of [Haigh](/source/John_George_Haigh) and Christie'', London: W. Heinemann, 1958 * ''The English Lake District'', London: B.T.Batsford Ltd, 1964 * ''Scratch and Co – The Great Cat Expedition'', with drawings by [A. Wainwright](/source/Alfred_Wainwright), London: Victor Gollancz, 1968; New York: Meredith Press, 1969, {{ISBN|978-0-9547213-1-2}}; Blackburn: Mountainmere Research, 2006, {{ISBN|0-9547213-1-4}} * ''Cumberland Heritage'' (Chapters include Camden, Braithwaite, Millbeck, Fellwalkers, Carlisle Canal, Armboth, [John Peel](/source/John_Peel) (Farmer) and The [Blencathra](/source/Blencathra)), with endpaper maps of old [Cumberland](/source/Cumberland), London: Gollancz, 1970, {{ISBN|0-575-00376-6}} * ''The Hunting of Wilberforce Pike'', illustrated by [A. Wainwright](/source/Alfred_Wainwright), London: Victor Gollancz, 1970 * ''The Loona Balloona'', Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1974, {{ISBN|0-8407-6378-6}} * ''[Samuel Taylor Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge): A Bondage of [Opium](/source/Opium)'', New York: [Stein and Day](/source/Stein_and_Day), 1974, {{ISBN|0-8128-1711-7}} and London: Victor Gollancz, 1974, {{ISBN|0-575-01731-7}} * ''[Cumbrian](/source/Cumberland) Discovery'', London: Victor Gollancz, 1977, {{ISBN|0-575-02235-3}} * ''The Bondage of Love – A Life of Mrs [Samuel Taylor Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge)''; London: Victor Gollancz, 1986, {{ISBN|0-575-03871-3}} * ''The Illustrated [Lake Poets](/source/Lake_Poets)'', 1987, {{ISBN|0-7112-0477-2}} * ''Blitz!'', London: Victor Gollancz, 1988, {{ISBN|0-575-04306-7}}, also published as ''We'll Meet Again'', London etc.: Grafton Books, 1990 * ''Thunder In The Sky'', London: Victor Gollancz, 1991 {{ISBN|0261669990}} * ''[Thomas Hardy](/source/Thomas_Hardy)'s World: The Life, Times and Works of the Great Novelist and Poet'', London: Carlton Books Ltd, 1997 {{ISBN|1-85868-245-2}} * [http://www.lutterworth.com/product_info.php/products_id/1915 ''Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner: Coleridge and his Children''], The Lutterworth Press (2013), {{ISBN|9780718893002}}. ==Footnotes== {{reflist}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Lefebure, Molly}} Category:1919 births Category:2013 deaths Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:People educated at North London Collegiate School Category:Samuel Taylor Coleridge Category:British women biographers Category:20th-century British novelists Category:20th-century British biographers Category:20th-century British women novelists Category:21st-century British writers Category:21st-century British biographers Category:21st-century British women writers Category:Writers from the London Borough of Hackney Category:English people of French descent --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Molly Lefebure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Lefebure) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Lefebure?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.