E. H. Young (Emily Hilda Young) Biography

British novelist, born in Northumberland, educated at Penrhos College in Wales. In 1902 she married a solicitor and moved to Bristol, the setting for most of her books. After her husband was killed at Ypres in 1917, she lived the rest of her life with the married Headmaster of Alleyn's School in Dulwich, a relationship which she concealed from the public. Most of her novels, witty commentaries on the morals and manners of the middle and upper-middle classes in England, are concerned with the conflict between the intense inner life of her female characters and the conventions and restraints of their sex and class, a conflict which Young herself experienced. Her early novels, A Corn of Wheat (1910), Yonder (1912), and Moor Fires (1916), were followed by The Misses Mallett (1927, originally published as The Bridge Dividing, 1922). The semi-autobiographical William (1925), about a ship-owner and his family, was Young's most popular novel, but Miss Mole (1930; James Tait Black Memorial Prize) is probably her most accomplished work. The heroine of this novel of manners, like many of Young's heroines, conforms outwardly, but underneath is a passionate woman with a secret which nearly destroys her. Young's other works include two children's books and the novels The Vicar's Daughter (1928), Jenny Wren (1932), The Curate's Wife (1934), Celia (1937), and Chatterton Square (1947).