June Guesdon Braybrooke (; 9 June 1920 – 30 May 1994), better known by her pen name Isobel English, was an English writer. Her best-known novel is '' Every Eye''. Fellow writer

Stevie Smith Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971), was an English poet and novelist. She won the Cholmondeley Award and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. A play, '' Stevie'' by Hugh Whitemore, ba ...

called her tone "a voice of our times, ironical and involved".

Life

Born in London to the Welsh civil servant John Mayne Jolliffe (1885–1957) and his Tasmanian wife May Guesdon (1885–1966), June was sent to

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period o ...

, when she was two, for a salt-water cure for tuberculosis of the spine. On her return, she was sent in 1928 to La Retraite, a convent school in

Burnham-on-Sea Burnham-on-Sea is a seaside town in Somerset, England, at the mouth of the River Parrett, upon Bridgwater Bay. Burnham was a small fishing village until the late 18th century when it began to grow because of its popularity as a seaside resort. ...

, Somerset, which she described in her 1956 novel ''Every Eye''. After secretarial college in London, she was taught literature by

Kenneth Allott Kenneth Cyril Bruce Allott (29 August 1912 – 23 May 1973) was an Anglo-Irish poet and academic, and authority on Matthew Arnold. Life Allott was the elder son of Hubert Cyril Willoughby Allott and his wife Rose (née Finlay).Ian Sansom, ‘Al ...

, while working with him. She married Ronald Dundas Orr-Ewing in 1941 and they had a daughter, Victoria, in the following year, but divorced in 1951. In 1953, she married a fellow writer, Neville Braybrooke (1923–2001). English's many literary friends included

Beryl Bainbridge Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. Bainbridge won the ...

Olivia Manning Olivia Mary Manning (2 March 1908 – 23 July 1980) was a British novelist, poet, writer, and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in the United Kingdom, Euro ...

and

Stevie Smith Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971), was an English poet and novelist. She won the Cholmon