Rounding, Virginia Virginia Rounding is a writer, critic and former RLF Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Author of biographies of Catherine the Great, Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, and of Grandes Horizontales, a study of French courtesans, she also contributes to a number of newspapers and magazines, such as the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. She is involved in the current life of Smithfield as an elected City of London councillor, known as a 'Common Councilman', for the area.