Edith became a socialite in London in her 20s when she worked as a model for Selwyn Image, Charles Shannon and other artists and used the alias 'Amaryllis'.

Her social circle included Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Selwyn Image, Herbert Horne and international visitors, such as Paul Verlaine.

The fictional Lucy Newcome was brought up in an affluent home but following the death of her parents lived with an aunt and uncle.

[12] After her husband's death in 1910, when Edith was only 36 years old, she became involved in charitable work in Shetland in 1912–13 with 'Irish fisher girls' who were supported by the Catholic church in the 'gutting' season.

[3] Edith also helped fund the Catholic Church in Lerwick, and the brass tabernacle there is inscribed 'In Memory of Llewellyn Hacon'.

[citation needed] Prime Minister H. H. Asquith resided at Oversteps on his golfing holiday in Dornoch in 1912[14] and probably 1913,[15] when suffragettes disturbed him while playing both years.

[8] At the start of the First World War, Hacon volunteered with Margaret Davidson for a role in Dr. Elsie Inglis's WW1 Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont.

Hacon supervised the kitchen, and seamstress work, making and repairing uniforms[18] and organised hockey matches and tea to keep up morale, and made a rag doll for one of the wounded soldiers.

[22] As a Roman Catholic, Hacon was not included in the Dornoch Cathedral World War One Roll of Honour plaque[23] as was her friend Margaret Davidson.