Finally a definitive, accurate biography of a grand dame. Name almost any writer, poet, artist, politician, Bloomsberry, aristocrat from `1905-1938 and you will find a connection to Ottoline. Her portrait was painted by more artists, she was caricatured and pilloried in more novels by now famous writers in books that went on to become classics, her name appears in more biographies and her biography is filled with the names of people she helped before they became famous. She was one of a kind. This particular biography was made possible by the availability of the 2500 letters to her from Bertrand Russell, and all her personal papers including the letters exchanged with Lytton Strachey. The truth set against the scurrilous attacks on her by the Bloomsberries in their correspondence that was used in previous accounts of her life as fact. She deserves her place in history. Tilda Swinton played her in the 1993 movie Wittgenstein as flamboyant and colourful. ( )