Miss Read
Miss Read, the pen name of Dora Jesse Saint, was an English author born in 1913 in Surrey, England. She spent her formative years in the countryside, which profoundly influenced her writing style and themes. After completing her education and training as a teacher, she married fellow educator Douglas Saint and began her teaching career in Middlesex. With the onset of World War II, while her husband served in the Royal Air Force, Miss Read turned to writing as a creative outlet, contributing essays and short stories to various publications.
Her debut novel, *Village School*, published in 1955, became a bestseller and marked the beginning of the beloved Fairacre series, set in a fictional rural village. This was followed by the Thrush Green series, which further captured the charm of village life and included around fifteen titles. Miss Read's works are characterized by their warmth and nostalgic portrayal of rural English life. She concluded her prolific writing career in 1996 with the publication of *A Peaceful Retirement*, leaving behind a legacy cherished by readers of cozy fiction.
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Miss Read
Writer and editor
- Born: April 17, 1913
- Birthplace: Surrey, England
- Died: April 7, 2012
Biography
Miss Read, the pseudonym of Dora Jesse Saint, was born in Surrey, England, in 1913. In her early years she spent a great deal of time with her two grandmothers because her father was serving in the military in France and her mother was occupied with running the family insurance business. Despite the circumstances of World War I, Read’s childhood was happy. When she was seven, her family moved to the countryside at Chelsferd in Kent, England. Here Read was exposed to a rural lifestyle which brought her much joy. These early years in the English countryside would influence her later writing. Read was educated in public schools and received her high school diploma from Bromley High School in Chelsford. After high school, she trained as a teacher at Homerton College in Cambridge, England.
In the early 1930’s, Read taught school in Middlesex, England. At this time, she met and married Douglas Saint, who was a fellow schoolteacher; the couple later had a daughter. In 1940, at the brink of World War II, Read and her family moved to Witney, England. Through the duration of the war, Read’s husband served in the Royal Air Force. In his absence, Read began to fill her spare time with writing.
Read began her writing career by selling essays and short stories to numerous periodicals, including Punch, The Observer, and The Times Educational Supplement. One of these essays was spotted by the publisher Michael Joseph, who encouraged Read to expand her essay into a novel. This novel, published in 1955, was titled Village School. Village School, set in a fictional rural English village, became an instant best-seller and was the first in Read’s Fairacre series of romance novels.
Read followed the Fairacre novels with the equally popular Thrush Green series, containing about fifteen titles. In her later years, Read lived in Berkshire, England, with her husband. In 1996, she publicly ended her writing career with the publication of her final work titled A Peaceful Retirement.