A Woman Named Edith – Daria Santini and Stewart Purvis on Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart has long evaded biographers. A Jewish-Austrian exile in 1930s London, she was a talented professional photographer, anti-fascist activist - and Soviet secret agent. Daria Santini provides the first full biography of this elusive figure. She traces Tudor-Hart’s life from her early years in the socialist intellectual circles of Vienna through her training at the Bauhaus to her work as a Soviet agent in Britain. Tudor-Hart played a vital role in the Cambridge Spies network, including recruiting Kim Philby. Throughout her life, Tudor-Hart was deeply committed to the ideals of communism. But despite being watched by the British Secret Service for decades, she was never caught and never confessed.

In her moving account, Santini pieces together the story of Edith’s life, revealing a woman of great energy, determination, and creativity.

Daria Santini is an independent scholar and writer. She was lecturer in German language and literature at the University of Oxford and is also the author of The Exiles: Actors, Artists and Writers Who Fled the Nazis for London.