author
Enid Bagnold
1889–1981
A bold, unconventional writer, she drew on wartime experience, family life, and a sharp eye for human behavior. She is best remembered for National Velvet, the beloved story of a girl determined to ride her horse in the Grand National.
2 Audiobooks
A diary without dates
by Enid Bagnold
The Happy Foreigner
by Enid Bagnold
About the author
Enid Bagnold was a British novelist, playwright, memoirist, and poet, born in Rochester, Kent, in 1889 and raised partly in Jamaica. She studied art in London and worked as a journalist before turning seriously to literature. During the First World War, she served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse and later drove ambulances in France, experiences she explored in A Diary Without Dates and The Happy Foreigner.
Bagnold published National Velvet in 1935, securing her lasting place in popular literature. She also wrote novels including The Squire and The Loved and Envied, as well as successful plays such as The Chalk Garden and The Chinese Prime Minister. She continued writing into her later years and published her autobiography in 1969.
She married Reuters chairman Sir Roderick Jones in 1920 but continued publishing under her maiden name. Bagnold died in Rottingdean in 1981, leaving behind a varied body of work marked by independence, wit, and a strong interest in the complexities of family and society.