E. M. Delafield - Diary of A Provincial Lady

Diary of A Provincial Lady

Delafield became great friends with Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda and became a director of Time and Tide. When the editor 'wanted some light "middles", preferably in serial form, she promised to think of something to submit'. It was thus in 1930 that her most popular and enduring work Diary of a Provincial Lady was born. This largely autobiographical novel substituted the names of "Robin" and "Vicky" for her own children, Lionel and Rosamund. It has never been out of print.

The novel inspired several sequels which chronicled later portions of her life: The Provincial Lady Goes Further, The Provincial Lady in America, and The Provincial Lady in Wartime. She later worked for the Ministry of Information. The Dictionary of National Biography says "On the outbreak of the Second World War, she lectured for the Ministry of Information and spent some weeks in France." - however we can surmise from The Provincial Lady in Wartime that in fact she spent quite a bit of time vainly looking for 'proper' war work and working in an ARP canteen.

In 1961, Delafield's daughter, Rosamund Dashwood, published Provincial Daughter, a semi-autobiographical account of her own experiences with domestic life in the 1950s.