The Wings of Icarus, Being the Life of One Emilia Fletcher, is an epistolary novel of a young heiress written by the daughter of the noted pre-Raphaelite painter of classical themes, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The book was published as part of a series written at the end of the 19th Century, "Pioneer Tales," which also included The Green Carnation, by Robert Hichens, a thinly-veiled send-up of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas's ill-fated relationship. Born in 1865 to Lawrence Alma-Tadema and his first wife, Pauline, Laurense Alma-Tadema wrote a number of books between 1890 and 1905, among them, Love's Martyr, The Crucifix, Realms of Unknown Kings, Songs of Womanhood, Four Plays, The Meaning of Happiness, and A Few Lyrics. She died in 1940.

Author Biography

Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865-1940) was an English novelist and poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked in many genres. Laurence Alma-Tadema lived in "The Fair Haven," Wittersham, Kent and she involved herself with music and plays with the villagers and their children, going on to construct a building to seat a hundred people, used for musical concerts and plays, which she named "Hall of Happy Hours." Her first novel, Love's Martyr, was published in 1886. In addition to her own collections of stories and poems, which she often published herself, Alma-Tadema wrote two novels, songs and works on drama; she also made translations. The Orlando Project says about Alma-Tadema's writing that the "characteristic tone is one of intense emotion, but in prose and verse she has the gift of compression." She contributed widely to periodicals, notably The Yellow Book and also edited one herself. Some of Alma-Tadema's plays were successfully produced in Germany.