VICTORIA LINCOLN was born in 1904 in Fall River, Massachusetts, where she lived until she graduated from the B.M.C. Durfee public high school in 1922. She majored in English at Radcliffe College, married the scion of a well-to-do Southern family, divorced, and later married Victor Lowe, a professor of philosophy whose primary interest was in the work of Alfred North Whitehead. They settled in Baltimore, Maryland. She had one child from her first marriage and two from her second. Miss Lincoln wrote many essays and short stories for women’s magazines and several novels including February Hill (an early success in 1934) and Charles (1962) about Charles Dickens. After many years of… wanting to write about Lizzie Borden, and despite advice that the market for books on Lizzie was saturated, she decided that her unique perspective on the murders deserved a hearing. A PRIVATE DISGRACE received an Edgar as the best non-fiction crime book of 1967 from the Mystery Writers of America. In 1981 Miss Lincoln died in her home in Baltimore. She was 76.