Dorothy Black (1890-1977) admits in her autobiography that she had no formal and very little informal education, couldn't spell, hated authority and was a wilful child, but from a young age she had, as she put it, 'a talent to amuse.' She could tell a good story, and by her late teens was already earning a very good living writing serial romance novels. Her life changed when she married a man she hardly knew and went to live with him in Burma.
Her autobiography is written in an impressionistic style, with descriptions of Burmese village life, boat trips and the travails of coping with the weather and snobbishness of the country but is short on details of the strange relationship with her husband. The love of her life, not her husband, is coyly referred to as A. and apart from a few lines describing his death we know very little of their short time together. She comes across as a strong individual who made choices influenced by her Victorian upbringing but had the sense to ignore idiotic advice when she was older. I was left wanting to know so much more about her.