Diary of a Provincial Lady, Hardcover

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E. M. Delafield's largely autobiographical novel is written as the journal of an upper-middle class lady living in a Devonshire village. Full of the peculiarities of daily life, the Provincial Lady attempts to avoid disaster and prevent chaos from descending upon her household, including a husband reluctant to do anything but doze behind The Times, mischievous children and trying servants, all the while keeping up appearances to society-at-large, and most particularly to the patronising Lady Boxe, with whom the Provincial Lady is eternally competing.

As witty and delightful today as upon first publication in 1930, Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly observed comic novel and an acknowledged classic. Introduced by Christina Hardyment.

About the Author:

E. M. Delafield (1890-1943) was born in Steyning, Sussex, the elder daughter of Count Henry Philip Ducarel de la Pasture, of Llandogo Priory, Monmouthshire, and Elizabeth Lydia Rosabelle, daughter of Edward William Bonham. Her mother was also a well-known novelist, writing as Mrs Henry de la Pasture.

In 1911, Delafield was accepted as a postulant by a French religious order but left upon learning her sister was planning to join another enclosed order, so as to avoid the separation. Her account of her experience, The Brides of Heaven, was written in 1931 and eventually published in her biography.

Delafield worked as a nurse in a Voluntary Aid Detachment in Exeter at the outbreak of World War I and her first novel, Zella Sees Herself, was published in 1917. She continued to publish one or two novels every year until nearly the end of her life.