First she married Lucian Freud, a painter and a Jew, scandalizing English society, not least her mother, who had never heard of Lucian's grandfather Sigmund. The couple quickly became part of a group of other provocative writers and artists, including Cyril Connolly and Francis Bacon. When the marriage failed -- destroyed in part by Freud's penchant for gambling -- Blackwood left for America. She married and had three children with Israel Citkowitz, a composer considered the heir to Aaron Copland until he mysteriously stopped writing. But Blackwood's role as dangerous muse reached its epitome with the brilliant, unstable poet Robert Lowell. Blackwood considered their harrowing relationship her "main marriage". Lowell dedicated his Pulitzer Prize -- winning book of verse, The Dolphin -- essentially the story of their courtship and violent seven-year marriage -- "to Caroline". And when Lowell died in 1977, he was clutching Lucian Freud's luminous portrait of Lady Caroline; his arms had to be broken to pry it loose.

As an artist in her own right, Blackwood unfurled her dark and satiric literary talents in a formidable body of work: ten books of fiction (one of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and nonfiction. She died on Valentine's Day 1996.