Romer Wilson's novels, which possess a pronounced philosophical bent, address some of the most pressing concerns of the time in which she lived. Among the issues that figure in her books are World War I and its devastating effects on civilization and personal relationships, the demise of a predominantly rural world, the harmful consequences to the countryside and to people's lives of the introduction of machinery and the substitution of automation for manual labor, the role of the artist, and the difficulties of romantic relationships thwarted by war or societal conventions.

Florence Roma Muir Wilson was born in Sheffield in 1891 to Arnold Muir Wilson, a solicitor, and Amy Letitia Dearden Wilson. When she was fifteen, she enrolled at West Heath School; after four years there she went to Girton College, Cambridge, to study law. She left college in 1914 and did war work selling potatoes for the Board of...