The goal of the provincial lady is to maintain 'niceness', whether it be in the home, relationships or personal behaviour. 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady' first published in the 1930s is a witty celebration of the suburban British housewife. in wartime.

A 1919 novel about the harrowing effect of the First World War on William, a socialist clerk, and Griselda, a suffragette. Preface by Nicola Beauman.

'This most welcome reissue must be one of the most compelling and perceptive books of informal literary criticism ever produced,' wrote the critic Elizabeth Young when "A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39", first published in 1983, was reprinted a few years later. She went on: 'Ranging through a variety of themes such as the Great War, the servant problem, psycho-analysis, sexuality and feminism, Nicola Beauman examines their effects upon the characters created by authors as diverse as Virginia Woolf, EM Delafield and Elinor Glyn. An astute critic, she produces an unforgettable picture of the lives of middle-class women during this period (inspired, she says, by "Brief Encounter").'

EM Delafield is best-known as the author of "The Diary of a Provincial Lady" (1930). But her favourite among her books was "Consequences" (1919), the deeply-felt novel she wrote about the plight of girls given no opportunities apart from marriage.Alex Clare is awkward and oversensitive and gets everything wrong; she refuses to marry the only young man who 'offers' and believes there is nothing left for her but to enter a convent. But that is not quite the end of her tragic story. Nor was it for EM Delafield, who also entered a convent for a year; but in her case she was able to find freedom through working as a VAD in an army hospital, 'which was emancipation of the most delirious kind. It was occupation, it was self-respect.' Like Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians", written at the same time, "Consequences" is a scream of horror against Victorian values; however, its ironic tone cannot disguise EM Delafield's deeply compassionate and feminist stance. The book has provoked strong reactions from our readers. Some have found Alex's naivety implausible, others have been very much moved by the incomprehension of those around her and by the ultimate tragedy of her life.

This is the first biography of one of the greatest English writers of the last century. Betty Coles became Elizabeth Taylor upon her marriage in 1936. Her first novel "At Mrs. Lippincote's "appeared in the same year (1945) as the actress Elizabeth Taylor was appearing in "National Velvet." Over the next thirty years, "the other Elizabeth Taylor" lived and worked in Buckinghamshire and published several titles of fiction. Nicola Beauman's biography draws on a wealth of hitherto undiscovered material.

Nicola Beauman is the author of "A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39," "Cynthia Asquith," and "Morgan: a Life of EM Forster." She founded Persephone Books in 1999.