EDITH SOMERVILLE and her cousin Violet Florence Martin were holidaying in Étaples in the summer of 1898 when they received a letter from their literary agent, J B Pinker. Over the previous nine years the cousins had collaborated on seven books, latterly to critical acclaim. Their careers looked to continue in a serious literary vein until the arrival of Pinker's letter, requesting light-hearted hunting stories for publication in The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes.
“And then heaven intervened,” Edith recalled years later. “There befell a day so cold and wet that the extreme measure of staying in the house and doing some work became our only resource. Gradually we talked and argued into existence one after another of the little group of men and women who were destined to become for us intimate friends.”
Thus began the trilogy of novels known today as , among the most beloved sporting literature ever written. Those “intimate friends”
