Although Esmé Wynne-Tyson would later see her five early novels as the least important aspect of her literary output, they trace the formative influences on a career and personal development that showed a remarkable progression throughout her life. An only child, Dorothy Estelle Esmé Ripper was born on 29 June 1898 at 26 Stansfield Road, Stockwell, London, to Harry Innes Ripper, a stockbroker, and Minnie Maude Pitt Ripper. It was not a happy marriage, as Wynne-Tyson's semi-autobiographical novel Incense and Sweet Cane (1930) shows, and Dodie (as her parents called her) suffered deeply from their frequent drinking and quarreling.

The theater was in Esmé Ripper's blood. Her mother's father, William Pitt, was a member of an amateur theatrical company; her mother and her aunts, Molly and Mona Pitt, all went on the stage, and Mona owned a touring company. Esmé Ripper was placed under contract on 13 October 1910 by...