Emma Smith (author)

Emma Smith
Born	Elspeth Hallsmith 21 August 1923
Died	24 April 2018 (aged 94) Putney, London
Occupation	Novelist
Language	English
Nationality	British
Genre	Biography,Children's
Years active	1940s – 2010s
Notable works	Maidens' Trip,The Far Cry
Notable awards	John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
Spouse	Richard Stewart-Jones
Children	Barnaby and Lucy Rose

Emma Smith(21 August 1923 – 24 April 2018) was an Englishnovelist,who also wrote for children and published two volumes of autobiography. She gave encouragement toLaurie Leewhile he was writing his bestselling memoir of his childhood,Cider with Rosie.

Early life and fame

Smith was born asElspeth HallsmithinCornwall,daughter of a bank clerk,Guthrie Hallsmith,D.S.O.and his wife Janet, a nurse.Her father suffered a nervous breakdown and left the family, after which Smith only saw him three more times in his life.She received a "negligible" private education up to the age of 16, when she decided to take up a job at theWar Office.During theSecond World War,she volunteered to work on the canals as a boatswoman. Later on, her experiences as a trainee boatswoman on theGrand Union Canalwould become the basis for her debut novel,Maidens' Trip.

In September 1946, Smith, still only 23, went off to India with a team of documentary film-makers that included the poetLaurie Lee,who served as the scriptwriter on the team. During the trip,Cider with Rosie,Lee's classic account of growing up in ruralGloucestershire,was in its embryonic stages. Emma Smith was one of those who would later encourage Lee to complete what became one of the best loved accounts of childhood 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 a critical and a commercial success and won theJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize.With the proceeds from it, she moved to Paris, where she took a room in theHotel de Tournon,and drawing on her memories of India, typed up her second novel. It was reprinted by Bloomsbury in 2011.It was while working on her second novel in Paris in 1948 that Smith was photographed with her typewriter on the quay at theIle de la Citéby the Frenchstreet photographerRobert Doisneau,who was commissioned byParis Match.After it had appeared in the magazine, Doisneau continued to use the photograph in his collections.

The Far Crywas published in 1949 to even greater acclaimand republished in 2002 byPersephone Books.The tale of a young English girl and her cantankerous father travelling together through India, it was awarded theJames Tait Black Memorial Prizefor fiction in 1949, and later reissued in aPenguinedition.

Later life

In 1951, Smith married Richard Stewart-Jones, who worked for theNational Trust,within four weeks of meeting him. However, he died of a heart attack six years later, leaving her with two young children and some heavily mortgaged houses in Chelsea.She then moved toRadnorshirein rural Wales to raise her children.

Her writing took a back seat to her family duties. Only very slowly did she return to writing. She produced several children's books, as well as a novel,The Opportunity of a Lifetime,in 1978. But she never regained the celebrity she had enjoyed in the late 1940s. The specialist canal book publisher M. & M. Baldwin pioneered the revival of interest in Emma Smith's work, by republishing her award-winningMaidens' Tripin 1987 and keeping it in print for many years.

The novelistSusan Hillhas been instrumental in a recent revival of interest in Emma Smith's works. Many years afterThe Far Cryhad gone out of print, Hill found a copy in ajumble saleand wrote enthusiastically of her discovery inThe Daily Telegraph.In 2002 – 50 years after the Penguin edition –Persephone BooksreprintedThe Far Cryas one of a series of forgotten classics by women writers. Hill supplied the afterword to that edition.

After 1980, Emma Smith lived inPutneyin south-west London.

In 2008, Smith returned to writing with amemoir,The Great Western Beach,describing her childhood inCornwallbetween the two World Wars.Bloomsbury Publishing,its publishers, went on to republishMaidens' Tripin 2009. The success of her first memoir ledBloomsbury Publishingto encouraged her to write a sequel. This appeared asAs Green As Grassin 2013, and covered her life between 1935, when she leftNewquayat the age of 12, to 1951 when she married.

Emma Smith died peacefully in Putney on 24 April 2018, at the age of 94.

Published works

Novels

• The Far Cry(1949)
• The Opportunity of a Lifetime(1978)

Autobiography

• Maidens' Trip(1948)
• The Great Western Beach: A Memoir of a Cornish Childhood Between the Wars(2008)
• As Green as Grass: Growing Up Before, During & After the Second World War(2013)

Children's books

• Emily, The Travelling Guinea Pig(1959)
• Out of Hand(1963)
• Emily's Voyage(1966)
• No Way of Telling(1972)

Uncollected short stories

• A Surplus of Lettuces(1977)
• Mackerel(1984)

Non-fiction

• Village Children: A Soviet Experience(1982)

External links

• A 2002 BBC interview with Emma Smith on the occasion of the Persephone reprint ofThe Far Cry
• Review ofThe Far Cryby Charles Allen inThe Spectatormagazine
• Interview with the author about her family life inThe Guardiannewspaper, May 2008
• Author profile at Persephone Books
• The Far Cryat Persephone Books
• Oral history recording of Emma Smith made by London Canal Museum in 2014, published on SoundCloud
• Obituary of Emma Smith published inThe Guardiannewspaper, April 2018
• Obituary of Emma Smith published inThe Telegraphnewspaper, April 2018