Almost everyone's childhood is boring—except one's own and Enid Bagnold's. At 80, she has written a splendid memoir ["Enid Bagnold's Autobiography"], which seethes with a fledgling's energy, lunging back and forth among the decades….

Gleefully aware of her own "self-delight," greedy for praise, she hurtled into experiences that were scarce for girls of her generation….

Eventually, she was bullied into marriage by Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters…. The evocations of their brawling marriage—"the truces, the fun, the love, the rage"—and her years with four children, two houses, stacks of servants, infinite (often unwanted) guests, and the necessity of writing for three hours every day, truly make family-life sound worth-while—as some can hardly believe it is today….

[The] attendant elegance (and the frank snobbery) will make some readers uneasy. The footnotes are unsettling, thus: Nöel∗ / Nöel∗ Coward; Juliet Duff∗ / ∗Lady Juliet Duff...