Diary of a Provincial Lady

E. M. Delafield's largely autobiographical novel takes the form of a journal written by an upper-middle-class lady living in a Devonshire village.

Written with humour, this charming novel is full of the peculiarities of daily life. The Provincial Lady of the title attempts to avoid disaster and prevent chaos from descending upon her household. But with a husband reluctant to do anything but doze behind The Times, mischievous children and trying servants, it's a challenge keeping up appearances on an inadequate income, particularly in front of the infuriating and haughty Lady Boxe.

As witty and delightful today as when it was first published in 1930, Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly observed comic novel and an acknowledged classic. This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition features an introduction by author and journalist Christina Hardyment. Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift-editions of much loved classic titles.

Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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.