Gladys Theodora Parrish (1887-1959) was the daughter of a wealthy American family. Upon marriage she adopted the surname of her husband, Constant Huntington, with whom she lived in London. She wrote Barton's Folly, a play for the Arts Theater Club, a couple of short stories for The New Yorker, and a novel, Carfrae's Comedy (1916). Shortly afterward she began writing Madame Solario, which however was only published anonymously forty years later, in 1956, and remained shrouded in mystery until 1980, when its author was discovered. Three years after publishing this novel acclaimed by critics and readers since 1956, after a series of family tragedies, she committed suicide.