Ouida was the pen name of the English novelist Marie Louise de la Ramée. Ramée, who lived from 1839 until 1908, took her pen name from her own baby-talk nickname for Louise. She wrote more than 40 novels, children's books, and collections of short stories and essays -- books that had flash, but frequently, well, weren't wholesome. She wrote about folks full of lust acting out the things inside their hearts . . . she was a woman, in short, ahead of her time. But her best work -- novels like Under Two Flags and Moths -- was so gripping that even the Victorian social critics had to own that she was a talent.
In 1874 she moved from London to Italy, and spent the remainder of her life in that country. She died there (alas, like many memorable writers) in poverty.
