author
Leonora Eyles
1889–1960
A bold English novelist, memoirist, and feminist, she wrote with unusual frankness about marriage, sex, work, and the pressures women faced in everyday life. Her books blend personal experience with a determined belief that women deserved more freedom and honesty than society often allowed them.
1 Audiobook
Captivity
by Leonora Eyles
About the author
Born Margaret Leonora Pitcairn in Swindon on September 1, 1889, Leonora Eyles became known as a novelist, memoirist, and feminist writer. She also wrote under the name Leonora Murray. Her life was marked by difficult personal experiences, and later readers have noted how strongly those experiences shaped both her fiction and her nonfiction.
Eyles is especially remembered for writing directly about the social and sexual limits placed on women. Her novel Captivity (1922) is often singled out as one of her strongest works, and she also wrote practical, outspoken books such as Women's Problems of To-Day, Careers for Women, and Commonsense about Sex. Alongside fiction, she contributed journalism and commentary, bringing the same clear, independent voice to public debate.
Her later memoir The Ram Escapes drew on her troubled childhood, showing how closely her writing and her life were connected. Across her work, she returned again and again to women's independence, economic security, and emotional truth. She died in London on July 27, 1960.