author
Naomi Royde-Smith
1875–1964
A prolific British writer and trailblazing editor, she helped open doors for emerging literary voices before building a wide-ranging career of her own in novels, plays, and biography. Her life bridges the worlds of early twentieth-century journalism and popular literary culture.
1 Audiobook
The tortoiseshell cat
by Naomi Royde-Smith
About the author
Born in 1875, Naomi Royde-Smith became one of the notable literary figures around the Westminster Gazette, where she served as its first woman literary editor. In that role she is credited with publishing early work by writers including Rupert Brooke, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, and Rose Macaulay.
She went on to write extensively herself, producing dozens of novels as well as plays, criticism, and biographies. Sources also note that she contributed to Time and Tide and later developed a reputation as a gifted biographer, even if her fiction was received more unevenly.
Royde-Smith died in 1964, leaving behind a career that mixed editorial influence with remarkable productivity. She is remembered not just for the books she wrote, but for the writers she encouraged and the place she carved out for herself in British literary life.