Ethel M DellUnder the pen name Ethel M. Dell, Ethel May Dell Savage (2 August 1881 - 17 September 1939) was a British author of over thirty well-read romantic novels and several short tales between 1911 and 1939. Dell was born in Streatham, an English suburb of ondon, on August 2, 1881, into a middle-class family. She had an elder sister and brother, and her father worked as a clerk in the City of London. When Dell was very young, she started writing stories, several of which were picked up by major periodicals. Her stories, which were mostly set in the British Raj and other former British colonial territories, were romantic in tone. Some people thought her stories were unduly sexual. It was rumored that her cousins kept track of how often she used the terms thrill, tremble, passion, and pant. After eight rejections from other publishers, Dell spent several years working on her debut book, The Way of an Eagle, which she eventually published via T. Fisher Unwin. The book was featured in a series called Unwin's First Novel Library that celebrated authors' debut novels. After being released in 1911, The Way of an Eagle had been printed thirty times by 1915. Read More Read Less