Carola Hicks, British historian and biographer, has passed away at age 68. Her resume included college professor, research fellow, museum curator, and of course, published author. She has published several nonfiction works.

Hicks first gained wide audience recognition for her 2001 publication, Improper Pursuits: The Scandalous Life of Lady Di Beauclerk. According to the Guardian: “[Improper Pursuits is] a gripping account of an 18th-century aristocrat, an earlier Lady Diana Spencer … Carola’s biography illuminated 18th-century artistic life and exposed the consequences of transgressive behaviour by women.”

Hicks earned her PhD on “the animal style in English Romanesque art” at Edinburgh University. A Renaissance woman to the core, she enjoyed a plethora of interests including theater, ice-skating, gardening, photography, and botanic drawing.