Dorothy Lambert was born Alicia Dorothea Irwin on 17 February 1884 in County Cork, Ireland. Until her marriage she lived with her family in ‘Roskeen’, a Georgian country house near Mallow.

In 1906 she married Eric Lambert, a solicitor. Soon after their marriage the couple sailed to Bombay, where their daughter, Eileen (known by her middle name ‘Audrey’) was born in 1908. Dorothy returned to Cork for the birth in July 1913 of their son, Thomas, who only lived for a few months. The Lamberts were both back in India at the outbreak of the First World War, during which Eric served in the army, but after the war they returned to England, where Eric became a partner in a firm of Dover solicitors, and was later Dover’s coroner.

The Lamberts lived in Shepherdswell, a few miles outside Dover, where Dorothy and her family immersed themselves in the social and cultural life of the village. This included numerous theatrical entertainments, some of the plays written by Dorothy herself.

Her novel-writing career began at the age of 43, and ultimately included twenty-seven novels, the last published in 1953. Dorothy Lambert died in a nursing home near Dover in 1967, having outlived Eric by nine years.