The first biography in 30 years of the influential floral artist and founder of the Cordon Bleu cookery school, published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death. A profoundly unconventional woman, she rose from a poverty-stricken childhood to the height of London society. Starting life teaching slum children, she ending it by creating the floral displays for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, along the way escaping an abusive husband and having an affair with a cross-dressing lesbian.