Elizabeth Bibesco English writer Date of Birth: 26.02.1897 Country: Great Britain

Elizabeth Bibesco: A Biography

Elizabeth Bibesco, born Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy Asquith, was an English writer and author of four novels and three collections of short stories that found resonance on both sides of the Atlantic. She was the eldest child of Herbert Henry Asquith, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his second wife, Margot Tennant. Elizabeth was born on January 26, 1897. According to her mother's autobiography, she was an intellectually advanced child with a capricious nature. By the age of 14, Elizabeth was already acquainted with many members of the House of Commons, who recognized her ability to socialize and her early interest in politics.

During World War I, as a teenager, Elizabeth was given the special privilege of being responsible for some "good deeds," including organizing and hosting entertainment events for the servicemen. In the literary world, Bibesco made her first confident step with the publication of her short dialogue titled "Off and On," which she performed at the Palace Theatre in 1916. In 1918, she played small roles in two silent war films, "Hearts of the World" and "The Great Love." A year later, Elizabeth married Prince Antoine Bibesco, a Romanian diplomat who was 22 years older than her. The couple decided to live in Paris. Antoine was a close friend of Marcel Proust, and after their marriage, Elizabeth became a favorite of the reclusive writer. Proust wrote that no contemporary could surpass Elizabeth in terms of intellectual abilities, and that she appeared like a beautiful creation from an Italian fresco. Bibesco wrote an obituary for Proust in November 1922, which was published in the "New Statesman" magazine.

Between 1921 and 1940, Bibesco published three collections of short stories, four novels, two plays, and a book of poetry. Her stories resonated on both sides of the Atlantic, and her novel "The Fir and the Palm" was serialized in the "Washington Post" from November to December 1924. Catherine Angell, reviewing Bibesco's story titled "Balloons" for "The Nation" magazine in 1923, wrote, "Elizabeth Bibesco uses such condensed material that Catherine Mansfield could have expanded it into several stories, and Henry James into several novels. Elizabeth Bibesco is a genius of brevity, which arises after multiple condensations of all the details of the presented situation. Hopes and failures of a lifetime fit on a few pages."

Elizabeth accompanied her husband on two trips, as he served as the Romanian ambassador to Washington in 1920 and Madrid in 1927. She was in Romania during World War II. Elizabeth Bibesco died of pneumonia at the age of 49 in 1945. She was buried in the Bibesco family crypt on the Mogosoaia Palace grounds near Bucharest. Her epitaph reads, "My soul has received the freedom of the night." This is the final line from her last poem in the 1927 collection. Elizabeth's death deeply affected her mother Margot, who never recovered from the loss and passed away a few months later. Antoine, expelled from Romania after the war, never returned to his homeland. He died in 1951 and was buried in Paris. Priscilla Hodgson, Elizabeth and Antoine's only child, died in 2004.