Enid Bagnold

Bagnold was born in England in 1889. A daughter of an officer in the Royal Engineers, she spent her childhood in a converted coffee plantation in Jamaica. She was educated in England at the famous Huxley school, which was run by the mother of Julian and Aldous Huxley. She was “finished” in Marburg, Germany and Lausanne, Switzerland. After a year in Paris she made her debut in Woolwich, one of the fashionable London suburbs.

A far from ordinary debutante, she became an ardent suffragette; studied painting with the famous Walter Sickert, showing her work at the New English Art Club; and counted the Georgian Poets among her circle of friends. It was during World War I that Bagnold’s literary gifts were first revealed. Her journal, kept while acting as a hospital aide, so imporessed Prince Emanuel Bibesco that he suggested it was worth publishing. Diary Without Dates was the result and brought her both literary recognition and dismissal from the hospital for “breach of discipline.”

At the age of 30, she married Sir Roderick Jones, owner and managing director of Reuters News Agency. As Lady Roderick Jones, she lived in a 21-room estate in Rottingdean, England.

Americans know her best for “Serena Blandish” a best-seller published in 1924, which was adapted into a highly successful play by S.N. Berhman. National Velvet, which followed in 1935, was another huge success and has the distinction, of course, of introducing Elizabeth Taylor to the silver screen in the movie version. Her first play, Lottie Dundass was produced when she was in her 50’s.

“The Chalk Garden” was originally turned down by English producers. Irene Selznick read it and brought it to Broadway in 1955.

She died in 1981 at the age of 91.