Alfred Duggan (born Alfredo León Duggan; 1903–1964) was an Argentine-born English historian and archaeologist, and a well-known historical novelist in the 1950s. His novels are known for meticulous historical research.
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Background
Though brought up in Britain, he was born Alfredo León Duggan in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a family of wealthy landowners of Irish descent. His family moved to Britain when he was two years old. His father, Alfredo Huberto Duggan, a first generation Irish Argentine, was appointed in 1905 to the Argentine Legation in London, and died in 1915. In 1917, his mother, the Alabama-born Grace Elvira Hinds, daughter of the U.S. Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, became the second wife of Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India.
Duggan and his brother, Hubert (1904–1943), were brought up in Britain at Curzon's seats, and were educated first at Wixenford and Eton. Thereafter Alfred went to Balliol College at Oxford, where he became acquainted with Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh. He often features in Waugh's letters and diaries of the period, and his South American background may have influenced the character of Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, though Waugh described the character as "2/3 Brian [Howard] and 1/3 Harold Acton. People think it was all Harold, who is a much sweeter and saner man [than Howard]."