Under Two Flags [Christmas Summary Classics]

OUIDA (LOUISE DE LA RAMÉE)
There are few women writers who have created more stir by their works than Louise de la Ramée, the lady who wrote under the pen name of Ouida. Born of English and French parentage at Bury St. Edmund, England, in 1840, she began to turn to account her undoubted literary talents at the age of twenty, when she contributed to the "New Monthly" and "Bentley's Magazine." In the same year appeared her first long story, "Granville de Vigne," which was afterwards renamed and republished as "Held in Bondage." From that time an amazing output of romances fell in rapid succession from her pen, the most picturesque of them, perhaps, being "Under Two Flags" (1867) and "Moths." With respect to the former, although on occasions it exhibits a tendency towards inaccurate observation, the story is told with rare dramatic force and descriptive power. From 1874, Mlle. Ramée made her home in Italy, where, at Lucca, in spite of her reputation as a novelist, she died in straightened circumstances Jan. 25, 1908.