The writer who would become E.M. Delafield, one of the most popular novelists of the 1930s, whose

Diary of a Provincial Lady

(1930) remains in print to this day, was born in 1890. Her mother was a novelist and her father a Count whose descendants had fled France in the Revolution; her childhood was a privileged one. This was contrasted with the nine months she spent in a French convent: Catholic themes would appear in some of her novels, such as

Consequences

(1918) and

Turn Back the Leaves

(1930). She was V.A.D in the First World War, and then worked in the Ministry of National Service: her novel

The War Workers

(1918) reflected her experiences of this. She married the son of a baronet in 1919, soon settling in Devon.

Delafield was a regular contributor to the feminist journal Time and

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Citation: Turner, Nick. "E. M. Delafield". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 July 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13244, accessed 19 March 2024.]

13244 E. M. Delafield 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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