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New Lara Croft Biography

The Right Honourable Lara Croft is the 11th Countess of Abbingdon. The Croft family was granted the title and rights to Abbingdon, Surrey by King Edward VI in 1547. The Croft Estates are comprised of three separate manor houses, two of which are maintained by the National Trust, and the third is home to Lady Croft.

Lara Croft was born in Surrey's Parkside hospital to Amelia Croft, Countess of Abbingdon and to the notorious archaeologist Richard Croft, 10th Earl of Abbingdon. Between the ages of three and six, she attended the Abbingdon Girls' School, where it quickly became clear that she was an exceptionally gifted child.

Lara had suffered several personal tragedies, including the deaths of both parents (before the events of Legend her mother was thought to be dead, but it was revealed that she didn't die) on separate occasions before she had come of age. Reputably an accredited genius and Olympic-standard gymnast, Lady Croft was the focus of wild speculation and intense debate in both the scientific and political communities in addition to the popular press.

At the age of nine she survived a plane crash in the Himalayas, and shortly after her mother mysteriously vanished. In perhaps the first story of her prodigious indomitability, she somehow survived a solo ten-day trek across the Himalayan Mountains, one of the most hostile environments on the planet. The story goes that when she arrived in Kathmandu she went to the nearest bar and made a polite telephone call to her father asking if it would be convenient for him to come and pick her up.

For six years following the plane crash, Lara rarely left her father's side, travelling around the world from one archaeological dig site to another. During this period she was ostensibly given a standard education from private tutors, but it would probably be more accurate to say she was her father's full time apprentice.

When Lara was fifteen, her father went missing in Cambodia. Extensive searches by the authorities and Lara herself turned up human remains that could not definitively be identified. Since Lord Croft's body was not officially recovered, Lara could not directly inherit the Croft title and Lara was thrust into a bitter family feud over control of the Abbingdon estates with her uncle Lord Errol Croft. Lara eventually won the legal battle, and took possession of her inheritance but at the cost of a deep rift in the Croft family that left her estranged from her living relatives.

Lara's methods are frequently called into question by government officials and other practicing archaeologists. She has been described variously as anything from cavalier to downright irresponsible. Some scholars suggest that her notorious lack of documentation and brute force methodology had contaminated countless sites and done more harm than good. There have even been allegations that Lara actually took items from these sites before informing the international community of their locations, and that she is "nothing more than a glorified treasure hunter". Despite the tabloid infatuation with her, Lara Croft guards her privacy with complete determination. She has never granted an interview nor made any personal comment to any of the rumours associated with her, preferring to express herself through brief formal statements given by the family solicitors, Hardgraves and Moore.