Stevie Smith was a British poet and author of three novels, including Novel on Yellow Paper. She was born in 1902 in Northeastern England. Her parents divorced when she was young, and as a result she lived with several extended family members. Smith was a sickly child and spent portions of her youth in a sanitarium while recovering from tuberculosis. During this time, she became fixated on death and dying, themes that would carry into her later work. She also developed depression and anxiety that would haunt her throughout her life.
After graduating from an all-girls school, Smith worked as a personal secretary for a successful publishing company. While working for the company, Smith began to write prolifically. She published her first work, Novel on Yellow Paper, in 1936. The novel referenced Smith's work as a secretary and discussed current events, such as the growing turbulence in Nazi Germany. She also discusses love and romance, an unusual topic for the increasingly reclusive Smith. The novel was followed by a collection of poetry in 1937, and her second novel, Over the Frontier, in 1938.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Smith continued to write poetry and prose at an incredible pace. Her third and final novel, The Holiday, was published in 1949. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Smith ceased her secretarial work and began to write less. Still, her legacy and renown was well-established. Sylvia Plath voiced an appreciation of Smith's work in the early 1960s, and in 1966 Smith received the Cholmondeley Award for Poets. In 1971 she suffered a brain aneurysm and died at the age of 68. Several posthumous poetry collections have since been released.
