Cultural Writing. Taking his lead from English writer Thomas Hardy, who over a hundred years ago published A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES - a series of portraits of landed gentry - Bruce Kellner has compiled his own group of noble dames. By turns hilarious and heart-breaking, these candid portraits limn the lives of, among others, Alice B. Toklas, Fania Marinoff (the wife of Carl Van Vechten), Mary Alice Hadley, Fritzi Scheff, Marguerite Young, Vassar Miller and Nina Balaban. "The nobility of all of these noble dames is in their endless courage" - Donald Windham.