Miss read biography

Dora Saint, better known by the pen-name Miss Read, became a well loved author with many books about English country life. She had narrowly survived Spanish flu as a young child after World War One, and was then brought up in the countryside for her health.

Jill saint daughter of miss read

The books were reprinted in countless editions, and her romantic picture of English village life found an international readership including huge popularity in the USA. At Cambridge she fell in love with the city and with the poetry of Rupert Brooke , both of which, her daughter recalled, gave her great pleasure throughout her life. Her work as a supply teacher inspired short articles for Punch magazine.

Her portrayal of ambitious middle class teachers frustrated by uncomprehending rural pupils no doubt tickled the humour of post-war readers and their social stereotypes. Having grown up in the Kent countryside, her married life continued in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, where she drew on familiar rural sources for her fictional villages of Fairacre and Rush Green.

In she was awarded an MBE for her services to literature.