First published in 1976, this fictional biography is the intimate and detailed portrait of the celebrated Bellamy family of the TV show Upstairs, Downstairs.
No family in the past century - excepting perhaps the Forsytes - has been so dramatically exposed to public stare as the Bellamys of Eaton Place. Drawing from the diaries of Richard Bellamy, the personal letters of Lady Majorie, the Southwold Papers in the British Museum, as well as his own friendship with James Bellamy and his conversations with Mrs. Elizabeth (Bellamy) Wallace shortly before her recent death in New York City, Pearson has written a sensitive and finely detailed portrait of this patrician English family.
John Pearson was a writer best associated with James Bond creator Ian Fleming. He was Fleming's assistant at the London Sunday Times and would go on to write the first biography of Ian Fleming, 1966's *The Life of Ian Fleming*. Pearson also wrote "true-crime" biographies, such as *The Profession of Violence*: an East End gang story about the rise and fall of the Kray twins.