Elizabeth Enright was born on September 17, 1909, in Oak Park, outside of Chicago. Her father was Walter J. Enright, a political cartoonist, and her mother was Maginel Wright Enright, a magazine illustrator. Influenced by her parents' interest in art, Elizabeth began drawing at age three. Her pictures were often of her favorite children's stories.

Once out of high school, she studied at the Art Students League in New York from 1927 to 1928. She spent part of 1929 in Paris, and in 1930 she married Robert Marty Gillham; they had three boys: Nicholas, Robert, and Oliver.

Enright began her career by illustrating children's books, most notably those by Marian King: Kees (1930), Annan, a Lad of Palestine (1931), and Kees and Kleintje (1934). Wanting to focus her illustrations on a subject of her own choosing, Enright wrote her first book, Kintu: A Congo Adventure (1935). For this book, she created the pictures first...