Dodie Smith

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Dodie Smith, best known for writing the beloved children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956), began her career as a dramatist; she wrote a series of hit plays in the 1930s. In the 1940s she turned to publishing novels (including the best-selling I Capture the Castle in 1948) and spent her last years writing several volumes of autobiography. After the war, DS sometimes experienced difficulties getting her work published or produced; she fell out of favour with critics who found her work too sentimental, charming, and cosy, particularly in contrast to the work of Angry Young Men such as John Osborne and Kingsley Amis . Her biggest successes from this later period were with younger audiences.
  • BirthName: Dorothy Gladys Smith
  • Nickname: Dodie
  • Married: Beesley
  • Pseudonyms: Carol Anthony
    DS used this pseudonym for an early play, British Talent.
    ; C. L. Anthony
    Smith, Dodie. Look Back with Astonishment. W. H. Allen, 1979.
    19
    Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
    71
    DS chose her two Anthony pseudonyms because St Anthony had been a favourite saint of hers since childhood; she was attracted to his emblem of a pig with a crutch. She joked that the C. L. referred to Caroline Linoleum.
    ; Charles Henry Percy
Photograph of a blue plaque set up on the stone white-painted ground floor wall of 18 Dorset Square, Marylebone, London NW1 6QB by the St Marylebone Society, reading "Dodie Smith, 1895-1990, Author and Playwright lived here."

Milestones

3 May 1896

Dorothy Gladys Smith (later known as DS ) was born at Whitefield in Lancashire; she remained an only child.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
3
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

14 September 1938

DS 's family drama Dear Octopus opened at the Queen's Theatre in London, where it played for almost a year.
Gale, Maggie B. West End Women: Women and the London Stage, 1918-1962. Routledge, 1996.
224

20 October 1948

DS published her first novel, the romantic story I Capture the Castle, with Little, Brown in Boston.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
178, 181

21 December 1954

At midnight DS suddenly experienced, she said, the whole plot of The Hundred and One Dalmatians unfold[ing] itself in my imagination.
Wynne-Tyson, Jon. Finding the Words: A Publishing Life. Michael Russell, 2004.
86

19 November 1956

DS 's tremendously popular children's book The Hundred and One Dalmatians was published in Britain; the US edition followed in 1957.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
240
Wynne-Tyson, Jon. Finding the Words: A Publishing Life. Michael Russell, 2004.
86

Christmas Day 1961

Disney released 101 Dalmatians, an animated film version of DS 's children's classic.
Whelehan, Imelda et al., editors. “A doggy fairy tale: The film metamorphoses of The Hundred and One DalmatiansAdaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text, Routledge, 1999, pp. 214-25.
215
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
265

1974

DS issued the first of her five volumes of autobiography (one remained unpublished), Look Back with Love, A Manchester Childhood.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
301

November 1985

DS published her last work, the fourth volume of her autobiography, entitled Look Back with Gratitude, with Muller, Blond & White ; a fifth volume remains unpublished.
Whitaker’s Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons, 1988–2003.
(1988)
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
327
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

24 November 1990

DS died at Finchingfield in Essex, at the age of ninety-four.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
321
“Obituary: Dodie Smith”. Guardian Weekly, 9 Dec. 1990, p. 24.
(9 December 1990): 24
“Obituary: Dodie Smith”. Times, 27 Nov. 1990, p. 20.
(27 November 1990): 20
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

3 May 1896

Dorothy Gladys Smith (later known as DS ) was born at Whitefield in Lancashire; she remained an only child.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
3
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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