Naomi Mitchison, journalist, poet, storyteller, novelist, and essayist, is known for her "sensitive imagination" and "curious fidelity" to others, regardless of century or place. From early childhood Mitchison knew what she liked and disliked in works written for children. In addition to fairy tales and stories depicting faraway places, among her favorites were the works of Thomas Hardy and E. Nesbit. If, however, she "began to suspect that the book [she] was reading was meant to improve [her] or teach [her] anything, [she] immediately looked at it with the most fierce suspicion and often refused to go on with it."

Born 1 November 1897 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Naomi Haldane spent her early years attending Dragon School. Her first career choice was to become a scientist like her father, John Scott Haldane, and her brother, J. B. S. Haldane. Though she did not graduate, her time at St. Anne's College, Oxford...