Vera Chapman

(Vera Ivy May Chapman)
(1898 - 1996)

Vera Chapman, also known as Vera Ivy May Fogerty or, in The Tolkien Society, as Belladonna Took. She founded The Tolkien Society, and also wrote a number of psudeo-historical and Arthurian books.

She was born in Bournemouth, England on the 8 May 1898 and lived in South Africa until she went to Oxford where she was one of the first woman to matriculate as a full member of Oxford University. She founded the first Tolkien Society of which she was secretary. She persuaded J R R Tolkien to become the society's honorary president. She wrote her first novel in 1975 and continued writing until her death in 1996.