Enid Bagnold

Jane Badger Books

US PRINTINGS

UK PRINTINGS

Enid Bagnold 1889-1981

“ Enid Bagnold was... determined from an early age to have it all: literary acclaim, social success, motherhood, marriage and lovers.”
(Anne Sebba)

Enid Bagnold was born in Kent in 1889, the daughter of the Commander of the Royal Engineers. She spent her early childhood in Jamaica, and was then educated in England and Switzerland. She then plunged into bohemian life in Chelsea, studying at Walter Sickert’s School of Art. She worked as a journalist with Frank Harris, with whom she had an affair. During the First World War she was a nurse at the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich, and wrote of her experiences there in Diary Without Dates (which was so critical of the hospital that she was dismissed.) She continued with her war work as a volunteer driver in France.

In 1920 she married Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters. They bought North End House in Rottingdean, Sussex, and it was here in 1935 that National Velvet was written. The couple also owned a racing stable, and it was their involvement with horses that inspired National Velvet.

Enid Bagnold was also a popular and successful playwright, and in 1970 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She died in 1981.

National Velvet
National Velvet was one of the earliest pony stories, and a powerful examples of wish fulfillment. Velvet Brown wins the Grand National, still something no real-life female has managed to do, on her raffle prize piebald horse, The Pie, trained by butcher’s assistant Mi. The brilliance of Enid Bagnold lay in her convincing the reader that everything that happened in the story was entirely possible. She was not seduced so far by the starriness of her tale to make Velvet win and keep the National: Velvet is disqualified, but we know that she was the real winner.

Enid Bagnold’s children had a piebald horse who was a particularly good jumper, and it is easy to suppose that he was the inspiration for The Pie. Mi Taylor was based on the Jones’ groom, Bernard McHardy, and the Browns were inspired by the Hilder family, local butchers, as well as the daughters of General Asquith, who rented The Elms each summer (The Elms, once owned by Rudyard Kipling, had been bought by Sir Roderick Jones).

Laurian Jones, Enid’s daughter, illustrated the book. I have always liked these powerful little line drawings. (As I have always had difficulty with horse’s feet myself, I do wonder if that is why Laurian Jones’ horses never have any.) National Velvet was made into a film by MGM in 1944, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, and it inspired a film sequel International Velvet, made in 1978 and starting Tatum O’Neal.

Finding the book: first editions with dustjackets are very expensive. Most of the other printings are readily available and reasonably priced.

Sources and Links:
East Sussex County Council, Local History
Anne Sebba’s website
Enid Bagnold, Anne Sebba, 1986

National Velvet
Heinemann, London, 1935, illus Laurian Jones. 268pp + vII
1954 reprint, illustrated by Laurian Jones
1954 New WIndmill
Reprinted 1958
As a play, 1946
Large print, Lythway 1978
Paperbacks: Penguin 1939 (Penguin Book no 232), Penguin 1962, Pan, 1978, Piccolo, 1984
Mammoth, 1992

National Velvet and its various printings

National Velvet has been through a goodly number of reprintings. Below are the examples I have been able to find so far. Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau for providing photographs of the American versions.

National Velvet

Enid Bagnold, adapted by Lee Wyndham

ill Al Brule

Grosset & Dunlap 1961

Susan Bourgeau, who sent me the pictures of this version (illustrated above), said: “This is a picture-book sized abridged/adapted version....frankly, it's terrible, but I bought it because a) it was a dollar, b) the illustrations were such fun 50s/early 60s kitsch, and c) it kept it out of the hands of anyone who might think it had anything to do with the real book as Bagnold wrote it!

Wyndham was actually an author in her own right, and is best known for the Suzie ballet books (what is it with horse book/ballet book authors?), written for a much younger reader than Lorna Hill's books. The hardest to find of them is Suzie and the Ballet Horse, in which Suzie dances with a Lipizzaner!

National Velvet

Wm Morrow ,1949

ill Paul Brown