Frances Winwar

Who was Frances Winwar?

Frances Winwar, was an Italian/American biographer, translator, and fiction writer.

Winwar was born Francesca Vinciguerra in Taormina, Sicily and came to the United States through Ellis Island in June 1907. Her pseudonym Winwar is an Anglicization of her birth name. Her husbands were Communist propagandist and writer Victor J. Jerome, educator Bernard Grabanir, mystery novelist Richard Wilson Webb, and Dr. Francis D. Lazenby, classics scholar and librarian at the University of Notre Dame.

She is best known for her series of romanticized biographies of 19th Century English writers. She was also a frequent translator of classic Italian works into English and published several romantic novels set during historical events.

Inn the 1930s and 1940s, Winwar was an outspoken opponent of Italian Fascism.