Sheila Kaye-Smith

Sheila Kaye-Smith (born Feb. 4, 1887, St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, Sussex, Eng.—died Jan. 14, 1956, Northiam, near Rye, Sussex) was a British novelist, best known for her many novels depicting life in her native rural Sussex.

The daughter of a country doctor, Kaye-Smith began writing as a youth, publishing her first novel, The Tramping Methodist (1908), at age 21. Other novels and a book of verse were followed by Sussex Gorse: The Story of a Fight (1916), her first critical success and perhaps her finest novel. It concerns a ruthlessly ambitious farmer and landowner who, in his relentless search to expand his holdings and wealth, alienates family and friends. Tamarisk Town (1919) and Joanna Godden (1921) similarly deal with struggle and survival in rural Sussex.

In 1918 Kaye-Smith joined the Anglican church, and in 1929 she and her husband, an Anglican clergyman (whom she had married in 1924), converted to Roman Catholicism. The deep influence of religion is seen in such works as The End of the House of Alard (1923) and The History of Susan Spray, the Female Preacher (1931). In all, she wrote more than 40 books, including collections of short stories, three volumes of autobiography, two biographical studies (in collaboration with G.B. Stern) of novelist Jane Austen, and several other works of nonfiction.