Elizabeth Cadell

Elizabeth Vandyke Cadell was born in 1903 Calcutta in the British Indian Colony. She got married to a young Scotsman named Cadell and changed her name to Elizabeth Cadell. She stayed in India until she lost her husband which forced her to move to England with her two children just before the break of World War II. She published her first novel “My Dear Aunt” in 1946, which was a lighthearted narrative about family life, something very dear to her heart. Her novels are full of narratives of optimism and humor conquering widowhood and sorrow, which have won her a legion of fans and allowed her to travel and educate her son through the British Navy College. Many of her novels are set in Portugal, France, and Spain even though there is the occasional Indian and English setting. She spent most of her years in Portugal, where her daughter got married. She died in 1989 aged eighty-five and left behind seven grandchildren all of whom gained a lot from her gentle teaching, wisdom, and humor. British India has definitely changed a lot since the last time she was there, and the quaint English village life that she loved writing about has also been significantly modernized. Nonetheless, the laughter, tears, love affairs of the quirky characters in her novels still evoke much emotion among both young and old readers alike.