Enid Bagnold

Enid Bagnold

Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones (born October 27, 1889 in Rochester , Kent , † March 31, 1981 in Rottingdean , Brighton and Hove , East Sussex ) was a British writer and playwright .

Life

'Enid Bagnold Age c.25' ( Maurice Asselin , 1915)

Enid Bagnold was born in Rochester, Kent, but spent her early childhood in Jamaica . She received her schooling in Switzerland and England , where she was taught at Prior's Field, a school run by Aldous Huxley's mother . From 1908 she attended Walter Sicket's art school, where she developed a talent for etchings . During this time in London she worked for some time as a journalist for Frank Harris , with whom she had an affair, and met Henri Gaudier-Brzeska , Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry .

When the First World War broke out , she volunteered and worked as a nurse at the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich . Her record of this experience, published as Diary Without Dates (1917), criticized the hospital management so harshly that her military superiors arranged for her to be discharged. However, Bagnold was still determined to support her country's war effort and went to France , where she worked as a driver. Their experiences later flowed into the book The Happy Foreigner (1920).

In 1920 Enid Bagnold married Sir Roderick Jones , the head of the Reuters news agency . She became Lady Jones through her marriage, but continued to write under her maiden name. Her novel The Difficulty of Getting Married in 1924 attracted attention . Her internationally best known and most successful work, Velvet, the girl with the horse ( National Velvet ) first appeared in 1935. The children's book was published in 1944 by Clarence Brown under the title Little Girl, Big Heart ( National Velvet ) with Elizabeth Taylor , Donald Crisp and Mickey Rooney filmed in Hollywood . Bagnold himself later turned it into a play. Of Bagnold's other novels, The Squire (1937) under the title Die Pforte des Lebens 1939 and The Loved and Envied (1951) under the title Geliebe und Envied 1952 were translated into German . From her literary beginnings, Bagnold had also written poetry that was published in several anthologies .

Of her plays, Der Kreidegarten ( The Chalk Garden , 1955) in particular achieved a certain level of notoriety in Germany, not least thanks to the film adaptation Das Haus im Kreidegarten ( The Chalk Garden , 1963) by Ronald Neame with Edith Evans , Deborah Kerr , Sir John Mills and Hayley Mills in the lead roles. The piece was inspired by her own garden in North End House in Rottingdean . In 1969, Enid Bagnold published her autobiography. She died on March 3, 1981 in Rottingdean.

Honors

• 1956 - Tony Award nomination for "Best Piece" for author of The Chalk Garden

Works

Novels

• The Happy Foreigner , 1920
• Serena Blandish or the Difficulty of Getting Married , 1924
• Alice & Thomas & Jane , 1930
• National Velvet , 1935, ISBN 0-3808-1056-5 (German Velvet, the girl with the horse , 1956)
• The Squire , 1938 ( The Gate of Life , 1939)
• The Door of Life , 1938
• The Loved and Envied , 1951 ( Eng . Loved and Envied , 1952)
• Theater , 1951
• The Girl's Journey , 1954 (contains The Happy Foreigner and The Squire )

Poetry

• The Sailing Ships and other poems , 1918
• Poems , 1978
• Early Poems , 1987

Stage plays

• Lottie Dundass , 1943
• The Chalk Garden , 1955 (dt. The Chalk Garden , 1961)
• National Velvet , 1961
• The Chinese Prime Minister , 1964 (dt. Chinese Premier )
• Call Me Jacky , 1968 (German call me Jacky )
• Matter of Gravity , 1975

Autobiographical, letters and diaries

• A Diary Without Dates , 1917
• Autobiography , 1969
• Letters to Frank Harris & Other Friends , 1980

literature

• Lenemaja Friedman: Enid Bagnold . Twayne's English Authors Series. Twayne 1986, ISBN 0-8057-6922-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Enid Bagnold in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography at Spartacus (English)
• Enid Bagnold in the Internet Movie Database (English)