In 1900, her parents took all their children on an overseas trip to Paris and Switzerland, and Cottie Sanders, "born with an inexplicable craving for heights," was enchanted by the Alps and became interested in mountain climbing.
Sanders passed the entrance exams to enter Oxford University, but did not attend, instead staying home to help her mother recover from the death of a son.
She was described as "stormy, troubled, and troublesome" and "an unloved wife who made herself 'one of the best-loved of all women novelists' in the twentieth century.
"[6] A dust jacket of one of her books in 1949 stated that "she became the youngest member of the Alpine Club at the age of 19, with sixteen first-class ascents to her credit.
She is a great gardener; she has an interest in and knowledge of archaeology rare in her sex; and she has deep learning in her own craft of writing.
In 1941 during World War II, fleeing German advances, the O'Malleys escaped via the Trans-Siberian Railroad and Cottie, or Ann Bridge, spent a year in the US before returning to Turkey.
Frontier Passage (1942) was a source of information used by British intelligence to set up a World War II anti-German resistance movement in Spain.
[10] In her later years, Bridge turned more toward writing auto-biographical works and a mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth named Julia Probyn and set in several different countries.
Although very popular in their day, Bridge's books are mostly out of print and have received little critical attention, generally being regarded as "entertaining travelogues."