Enid Bagnold's artistic life began, she says in her Autobiography: From 1889 (1969), when she and her family moved to Jamaica. "Beauty never hit me until I was nine. . . . This was the first page of my life as someone who can 'see.' It was like a man idly staring at a field suddenly finding he had Picasso's eyes. In the most startling way I never felt young again. I remember myself then just as I feel myself now." Most people know her only for the novel National Velvet (1935), which is now considered a classic; but those who appreciate beauty of diction and an understanding of human nature recognize the excellence of her other novels, as well. She began writing poetry at an early age and published a collection, The Sailing Ships, and Other Poems, in 1917. For the first years of her literary career she wrote novels; she published her...