Emily Hilda Young (1880-1949) was born in Whitley, Northumberland. She was educated at Gateshead High School and Penrhos College in Wales. In 1902 she married solicitor John Daniell and moved to Bristol, the thinly-disguised setting of most of her novels.

During the First World War Emily Young worked in a livery stable, then at a munitions factory. After her husband’s death at Ypres in 1917 she left Bristol for London, living with a married man, Ralph Henderson, and his wife. Between 1910 and 1947 she wrote eleven novels for adults, including Miss Mole which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1930, and two for children.

After Ralph Henderson’s retirement, and the death of his wife, he and Emily went to live in Bradford-on-Avon. Her final novel, Chatterton Square, was published in 1947, two years before her death.