Margaret Rumer Godden was born on December 10, 1907, in Sussex, England, but moved to India at the age of nine months. She lived in India with her father, who was a steamship agent in Bengal, her mother, and her three sisters until 1919. Godden later claimed that she and her sisters had the happiest of childhoods. Sent "home" to England at age twelve, Godden was unfamiliar with the culture and unhappy there. She moved from school to school for many months until settling, finally, at Moira House in Eastbourne. Encouraged to write, Godden published a book of poems with her own money while yet in her teens and sold not a copy.

In 1930 Godden returned to India and started a school for dance in Calcutta.

While there, she married Laurence Sinclair Foster. Her first book, Chinese Puzzle, was accepted for publication during the week her first...