Edith Mary Lutyens was a British author who is principally known for her authoritative biographical works on the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...

.

Early life

She was the fourth and youngest daughter of the architect Edwin Lutyens

Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

, and his wife Emily Bulwer-Lytton, granddaughter of the novelist-peer Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Career

Mary Lutyens knew Krishnamurti from 1911 until his death in 1986. In the 1920s, she spent some time at The Manor

The Manor (Mosman, NSW)

The Manor is a mansion in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. Built circa 1911 loosely in the Federation style, it stands in the harbour front street of Iluka Road, in the Mosman locality of Clifton Gardens....

, a centre run by Charles Webster Leadbeater

Charles Webster Leadbeater

Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church...

 in Mosman, New South Wales

Mosman, New South Wales

Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...

, Australia, while Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya stayed at another house nearby. The Manor was a large home known to its neighbours as Bakewell's Folly. Charles Leadbeater rented it from 1922 and Lutyens stayed there for some time, which eventually provided her with material for her book Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening.

Apart from her works on Krishnamurti, Lutyens also wrote a number of novels, and biographies of John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, Effie Gray

Effie Gray

Euphemia Chalmers Millais, Lady Millais née Gray, known as Effie Gray, Effie Ruskin or Effie Millais was the wife of the critic John Ruskin, but left her husband without the marriage being consummated, and after the annulment of the marriage, married his protégé, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John...

 and her own father. In her book Millais and the Ruskins she put forward the controversial argument that Ruskin could not consummate his marriage because he was repelled by his wife's pubic hair.

Personal life

Mary Lutyens married twice. Her first marriage, in 1930, to Anthony Rupert Herbert Franklin Sewell, a stockbroker, produced one daughter, Amanda Lutyens, but ended in divorce in 1945. Her second marriage, in 1945, was to J. G. Links, art historian and royal furrier, and ended with his death in 1997.

Works

• Perchance to Dream
  Perchance to Dream
  "Perchance to Dream" is a phrase from the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy spoken by Shakespeare's Hamlet. The words have been used as a title for:*Perchance to Dream , 1945 English musical by Ivor Novello...
  
  , London: John Murray, 1935.
• Effie in Venice: Effie Ruskin's Letters Home 1849–1852, London: John Murray, 1965, Pallas Athene (UK), 2001 edition: ISBN 1-873429-33-9.
• Millais and the Ruskins, London: John Murray, 1967, Vanguard Press
  Vanguard Press
  The Vanguard Press was a United States publishing house established with a $100,000 grant from the left wing American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Garland Fund. Throughout the 1920s, Vanguard Press issued an array of books on radical topics, including studies of the Soviet Union,...
  
   in USA.
• Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening
  Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening
  Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening is the first volume of a three-volume biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti by Mary Lutyens . It was originally published in 1975.-About the work:...
  
  , London: John Murray, 1975, Shambhala reprint edition 1997: ISBN 1-57062-288-4. First installment of a three-volume biography, covers the period from Krishnamurti's birth in 1895 to 1933.
• Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment
  Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment
  Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment is the second of a three-volume biography authored by Mary Lutyens , who was acquainted with Jiddu Krishnamurti from 1911 until his death. It was originally published in 1983....
  
  , London: John Murray, 1983, ISBN 0-7195-3979-X, Farrar, Straus, Giroux paperback: ISBN 0-374-18224-8, Avon Books 1991 reprint with US spelling "Fulfillment": ISBN 0-380-71112-5. Second volume of the Krishnamurti biography, covers the years from 1933 to 1980.
• Krishnamurti: The Open Door, London: John Murray, 1988, ISBN 0-7195-4534-X. Final volume of biography covers years 1980 to 1986, the end of Krishnamurti's life.
• The Lyttons in India: An account of Lord Lytton's Viceroyalty, 1876–1880 London: John Murray, 1979, ISBN 0-7195-3677-4.
• Edwin Lutyens: A Memoir, Academic Pr Canada Ltd, 1980, ISBN 0-7195-3777-0, Black Swan, 1991 revised edition: ISBN 0-552-99417-0.
• The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, London: John Murray, 1990, ISBN 0-7195-4749-0, Nesma Books India 1999: ISBN 81-87075-44-9, ISBN 0-900506-22-9, also published as Krishnamurti: His Life and Death, St Martins Press 1991: ISBN 0-312-05455-6, an abridgement of her trilogy on Krishnamurti's life.
• The Boy Krishna, 1995, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust paperback: ISBN 0-900506-13-X. Subtitled, "The First Fourteen Years in the Life of J. Krishnamurti".
• Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals, 1996, Ojai, CA: Krishnamurti Foundation of America, ISBN 1-888004-08-8.
• J. Krishnamurti: A Life, 2005, Penguin Books India, ISBN 0-14-400006-7. This book is a compilation of The Years of Awakening, The Years of Fulfilment, and The Open Door.