A page of Perditas
It's pronounced (by me and probably Shakespeare, at least) PURRditta (not
perDEETa). It's the feminine past participle of the Latin verb perdere
(perdo, perdere, perdidi, perditum) to lose, ruin, destroy, raze to the
ground...
More references very welcome. For now here's what I've collected.
Fiction with characters called Perdita:
- William Shakespeare: A Winter's Tale
This I think is the original coinage: the character was abandoned.
- Terry Pratchett: various books with Perdita X Dream. (I fondly imagine
that this one originates consciously or unconsciously with me, given that
my username is pxs and I know TP and I were once regular readers of the
same newsgroup...)
- Dodie Smith: One Hundred and One Dalmations
- Jean Plaidy: Perdita's Prince
- Nina Bawden: The Witch's Daughter
- Sarah Smith: The Vanished Child
- Margaret Atwood: Cat's Eye (if I remember rightly?)
- Isabel Hamer: Perdita
- Genevieve Lyons: Perdita's Passion
- Barry Gifford: Perdita Durango (and the
film, though it's
an unsound webpage which makes no sense without shockwave or something)
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Perdita and Other Stories
- Katie Fforde: Thyme Out and Second Thyme Around
- John Updike: Toward the End of Time
- John Cowper Powys: Weymouth Sands
- Mary Stewart: The Wind off the Small Isles
- Mary Gentle: Grunts
- Jilly Cooper: Polo
- Rosemary Sutcliffe: The Queen Elizabeth Story
Non-fiction:
- Paule Byrne: Perdita, The life of Mary Robinson
People with "Perdita" as their "real" (given) name:
- Perdita Andrews, who lives in Ontario, Canada, and works as a consultant.
- Perdita Armstrong, who lives in London and (in 2006) was 26 and had a
6yo daughter.
- Perdita Barran, who is a chemist at UCSB.
- Perdita Boardman, whose daughter recently contacted me with this info - thanks!
- Perdita Buchan, writer.
- Perdita Butler, seems to be e.g. program director for the Youth Farm
and Market Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Perdita Campbell is associated with
Persimmon Pudding for me at present!
- Perdita Chenjela lives in Zambia, was 32 in 2008 and is a writer and journalist.
- Perdita
Felicien an awesome sprinter/hurdler it seems
- Perdita Finn, author of several books including Awesome Activites
To Help Reluctant Writers Succeed: Strategies, Min-Lessons, And Motivating
Activites To Boost Writing Skills And Writing Confidence
- Perdita Fraser, author of Equities and Emerging Stock Markets
(Antonia Fraser's daughter, I understand)
- Perdita Hall from Surrey, student, University of St Andrews (in 2007).
- Perdita Hatton-Brown, who writes (in 2005) "I am 24, from Frome in
Somerset... I am a drama graduate thinking about directing and currently
selling vintage clothes on ebay..."
- Perdita
Kretschmer
- Perdita Langhorn, mature student living in Brighton with her husband
and baby daughter (in 2008)
- Perdita Loehr, or
Loehr-Richter, or the variants with o-umlaut instead of oe, a computer
science researcher in Germany
- Perdita Lowe, mature student from Devon
- Perdita Rose Martell, born 8th oct 1974. She lives in London and
describes herself (in 2008) as "entrepreneur and loving mother of
patterdale terrier"
- Perdita Patterson, editor of What Mobile
- Perdita Pohle a geographer
- Perdita Stevens, that's me!
- Perdita Strang, Revenue Officer;
Mother of Grace 2 and Jack and Millie 10 months (at Jan 05);
lives in Lincolnshire, UK, born in RAF Wegberg Germany 1974.
Perditas who may or may not be pen names:
- Perdita Huston, author of several books including Families As We
Are: Conversations From Around The World
- Perdita Kirkness Norwood, author of The Enlightened Stepmother
- Perdita Schaffner, author of Nights
Perditas who may or may not be stage names:
Miscellaneous:
- Ella, who lives in France, wrote to tell me that she has adopted an
abandoned puppy and called her Perdita
- a painting Mrs
"Perdita" Robinson by Thomas Gainsborough
- the rose
called Perdita
- Perdita Finn tells me that her husband found in a book by Thomas
Merton that Perdita was the lost island of paradise according to St.
Brendan!
- any number of gaming characters called Perdita: I'm not listing them
perdita@inf.ed.ac.uk