Emily Hilda Daniell, born Emily Hilda Young (21 March 1880 – 8 August 1949) was an English novelist, children's writer and mountaineer, writing as E. H. Young. She supported the women's suffrage movement.
Life
Emily Young was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, to Frances Jane Young and William Michael Young, a shipbroker. Her sister, Gladys Young, became an actress. Young attended Gateshead Secondary School and later Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay.
In 1902, at the age of 22, Young married John Arthur Helton Daniell, a Bristol solicitor, and moved with him to the fashionable neighbourhood of Clifton, Bristol. There she developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy, became a supporter of the women's suffrage movement and started writing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and friend of her husband.
In 1914, at the outset of the First World War, Young went to work first as a stable groom and then in a munitions factory. Her husband, a sergeant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, was killed on 1 July 1917 during preparations for the Third Battle of Ypres. The following year she moved to 87a Sydenham Hill, London, to form a ménage à trois with her lover, by then headmaster of Alleyn's public school, and his wife. Young became the school librarian and occupied a flat in the Hendersons' house. She was addressed as "Mrs Daniell" to conceal their unconventional arrangement.
This change seems to have been the catalyst she needed. Seven novels followed, all set in Clifton, thinly disguised as "Upper Radstowe". The first was The Misses Mallett, published originally as The Bridge Dividing in 1922. Her 1930 novel Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award for fiction. In the 1940s, Young also wrote books for children: Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942).
