Emma Smith (author)
Encyclopedia
Early life and fame
Emma Smith was born as Elspeth Hallsmith in CornwallCornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
in 1923. She was educated privately up to the age of 16, when she decided to take up a job at the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
. During the Second World War, she volunteered to work on the canals as a boatwoman. Later on, her experiences as a trainee boatwoman on the Grand Union Canal
Grand Union Canal
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. Its main line connects London and Birmingham, stretching for 137 miles with 166 locks...
would become the basis for her debut novel (Maidens' Trip).
In September 1946, Smith, still only 23, went off to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with a team of documentary filmmakers that included the poet Laurie Lee
Laurie Lee
Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...
, who was serving as scriptwriter on the team. Cider with Rosie
Cider with Rosie
Cider with Rosie is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee . It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War...
, Lee's classic account of growing up in rural Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, was in its embryonic stages during this trip; Emma Smith was one of those who would later encourage Lee to complete the book which went on to become one of the most beloved of children's books in English literature.
After nine months in India, Smith returned to England in 1947 and set down to write her first book. Maidens' Trip (1948) proved to be both a critical and a commercial success and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom...
. With the proceeds from the book, Smith moved to Paris where she took a room in the Hotel de Tournon and, drawing on her memories of India, typed up her second novel.
The Far Cry was published in 1949 to even greater acclaim and was republished in 2002 by Persephone Books
Persephone Books
Persephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bloomsbury, London. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone has a catalogue of 93 "neglected novels, diaries, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, biography and cookery books, mostly by women and mostly dating from the early to...
. The tale of a young English girl and her cantankerous father travelling together through India, it was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for fiction in 1949, and later reissued in a Penguin
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
edition.
Later life
In 1951, Smith married. Within the next six years, she became the mother of two children, and then suddenly a widow. Finding herself a young single mother, Smith moved to RadnorshireRadnorshire
Radnorshire is one of thirteen historic and former administrative counties of Wales. It is represented by the Radnorshire area of Powys, which according to the 2001 census, had a population of 24,805...
in rural Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
in order to raise her children. Her writing now took a backseat to her family duties.
It was only very slowly that Smith finally returned to writing. She produced several children's books, as well as a novel in 1978. But she never managed to regain the celebrity she had enjoyed in the late 1940s, when she had back-to-back award-winning bestsellers to her name.
The novelist Susan Hill
Susan Hill
Susan Hill is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, The Mist in the Mirror and I'm the King of the Castle for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971....
has been instrumental in the recent revival of interest in Emma Smith's works. Many years after The Far Cry had gone out of print, Hill managed to hunt down a copy of the book in a jumble sale. She wrote enthusiastically about her discovery in the Daily Telegraph, and in 2002 - 50 years after the Penguin edition - Persephone Books
Persephone Books
Persephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bloomsbury, London. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone has a catalogue of 93 "neglected novels, diaries, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, biography and cookery books, mostly by women and mostly dating from the early to...
reprinted The Far Cry as one of a series of forgotten classics by women writers. Hill supplied the Afterword to their edition.
Since 1980, Emma Smith has lived in Putney
Putney
Putney is a district in south-west London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
in southwest London.
In 2008, Smith returned to writing with her memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
The Great Western Beach, describing her childhood summers spent in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
between the two World Wars.