Susan Lowndes Marques

Susan Antonia Dorothea Priestley Lowndes Marques OBE (15 February 1907 - 3 February 1993) was a writer and journalist who became a leading figure in the British community in Lisbon, Portugal. Family and early life Generally known as Susan Lowndes, or Susan Lowndes Marques after her marriage to the Portuguese, Luís Marques, she was born into a distinguished family. Her great, great-grandfather was the British scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley, who was credited with the discovery of oxygen. Her grandmother was Bessie Rayner Parkes, a prominent British feminist and champion of women's suffrage. Her mother, Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a well-known writer of crime novels and biographies, best known for her novel, The Lodger, based on Jack the Ripper, which sold over a million copies and was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926. Her uncle was the poet and novelist Hilaire Belloc. Marriage and Lisbon Brought up in inter-war London, Susan Lowndes was therefore always surrounded by books and met many writers who visited the family home. Her father, Frederick Lowndes, worked as an editor for The Times. She was educated at St Mary's Convent, Ascot. On leaving school she did voluntary work and, for a time, ran an antique shop in London. In August 1938 she went with her father for a brief holiday in Lisbon, where she met Luís Artur de Oliveira Marques (1898-1976), an English-educated journalist. They were married in December of the same year in Westminster Cathedral in London and made their home in Lisbon, later moving to Monte Estoril. Her husband was the editor (later owner) of the Anglo-Portuguese News, a newspaper targeted primarily at the British community in Portugal. She would carry on running it after his death until 1980. He was the Lisbon correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the New York Times, as well as doing some English teaching. Writers remained at the centre of her life. Their son, Paulo Lowndes Marques, recalled visits to Lisbon from Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Aldous Huxley and Graham Greene. Other visitors included Rose Macaulay, Angus Wilson and Sachaverell Sitwell.