Winifred Peck, née Knox, (1882–1962) was an English novelist and biographer.

Biography edit

Winifred Frances Knox was born in Headington, England in 1882. Her father was Edmund Arbuthnott Knox, the fourth Bishop of Manchester. Knox was one of the first 40 pupils to attend Wycombe Abbey School, and she went on to read Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.[1]

Knox's first book, written in 1909, was a biography of Louis IX. In 1911 she married James Peck, a British civil servant,.[1]

Ten years after writing her first book, Winifred Peck began a novel-writing career which saw the publication of twenty-five books over a period of forty years, including House-bound (1942),[2] which was reprinted in 2007 by Persephone Books. She also wrote two books on the subject of her own childhood, A Little Learning (1952) and Home for the Holidays (1955).[3]

Peck had three sons (the second predeceased his parents),[4] and when her husband was awarded a knighthood in 1938 she assumed the title of Lady Peck.[5]

Peck was the sister of E. V. Knox, editor of Punch; Ronald Knox, theologian and writer;[1] Dilly Knox, cryptographer; Wilfred Lawrence Knox, clergyman; and Ethel Knox. Her niece was the Booker Prize-winning author Penelope Fitzgerald who wrote a biography of her father, E. V. Knox, and her uncles, entitled The Knox Brothers.

Lady Peck died on 20 November 1962.

Books edit

In her Who's Who entry, Peck listed the following books by her:[2]

Notes and references edit

Notes
  1. ^ Listed by mistake as The Patchwork Quilt
References
  1. ^ a b c Obituary, The Times, 22 November 1962, p.18
  2. ^ a b "Peck, Winifred Frances, (Lady Peck)", Who Was Who, online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 9 May 2014 (subscription required)
  3. ^ Peck, Winifred 1882–1962 WorldCat, retrieved 9 May 2014
  4. ^ Year Book of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1963-4, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1965, p. 32
  5. ^ "Peck, Sir James Wallace", Who Was Who, online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 9 May 2014 (subscription required)

External links edit