Enid Bagnold

"This lively biography reveals a passionate woman who was painfully aware of the difficulties of living as a writer and as a wife and mother". ("Times"). Anne Sebba explores the remarkable life of the gifted authoress of "National Velvet" and "The Chalk Garden". Enid Bagnold was born in 1889 and resolved from an early age to have it all: literary acclaim, social success, motherhood, marriage and lovers. She painted with Sickert, was sculpted by Brzeska, dallied with Frank Harris, and worked as a VAD during the First World War, later writing a famous expose of hospital cruelty. Her marriage to the head of Reuters enabled her to combine motherhood and a glittering social life, and the filming of "National Velvet" furthered her fame; though her 1930s regard for Hitler brought her infamy too. "An extremely readable and often revelatory book that portrays not only [Bagnold] ...but also the complex social period through which she lived". ("Financial Times").