Vivien Greene, an author and doll house restoration expert, died on Aug. 16. Cause of death was not released. She was 98.
Vivienne Dayrell-Browning was only 13 years old when she published the poetry collection, “The Little Wings.” While working at Blackwell Publishing in 1925, she met a budding young novelist named Graham Greene. He was so captivated by her that he converted from atheism to Roman Catholicism to win her hand. Although they separated in 1948, the couple never divorced.
When the Greene’s house in London was bombed during World War II, Vivien and her two children moved to Oxford. She bought an old dolls’ house at a local auction and began a hobby of collecting, restoring and refinishing such houses. In the 1960s, Greene founded the Rotunda Museum of Antique Dolls Houses, which contained 41 fully furnished miniature castles and cottages.
Greene also published several books on the subject, including “English Dolls’ Houses of the 18th and 19th Centuries” and “The Vivien Greene Dolls’ House Collection.”