Lady Violet Georgiana Powell (née Pakenham; 13 March 1912 – 12 January 2002) was a British writer and critic. Her husband was the author Anthony Powell.
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Life and career
Lady Violet was the third daughter of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, and the former Lady Mary Child-Villiers, daughter of Victor Child-Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey.
Lady Violet was a member of a literary family; her brothers were Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford and Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, while her sisters included the novelist and biographer Lady Pansy Lamb and the historian Lady Mary Clive. She was a distinguished memoirist and biographer. Her biography The Life of a Provincial Lady (1988), about E. M. Delafield, has been called by the scholar Nicholas Birns "one of the best literary biographies of a British writer in the twentieth century". Those who knew the couple well believed that Lady Violet made significant contributions to the richness, depth and polish of her husband's work. She also wrote a biography of the English novelist Flora Annie Steel.