Enid Bagnold (1889 - 1981) was a British author and playwright. Her account of her experience as a nurse during the First World War, Diary Without Dates (1917) was so critical of hospital administration that the military authorities arranged for her dismissal. Determined to help the war effort she went to France and worked as a volunteer driver. Later she wrote about this in The Happy Foreigner (1920), contrasting the duties and demands of the heroine's external life, with the freedom and excitement of her internal life during a whirl-wind romance with a French officer. Her next novel, The Difficulty of Getting Married (1924) was highly acclaimed, as was National Velvet (1935) for which she is best known. It tells the story of a girl, Velvet Brown, who attempts to ride her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. In 1944, the novel was made into a highly successful film with Elizabeth Taylor. Other novels include The Squire (1937) and The Loved and Envied (1951).